Happy Ever After
by GroovyKat
Summary: When the Doctor left Rose Tyler and his Meta-Crisis on the wet sands of Bad Wolf Bay, he imagined they'd both live a fantastic life together on the slow path. How could a genius like him be so wrong .. so very, very wrong? Please note that this is NOT a River Song/Doctor fic, although River features heavily. This is primarily a Tentoo/Rose story, with 11/Rose & 12/Rose moments.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: know. I know what you're saying: "Oh she's started another one when she has three still left unfinished?!" I agree. I do. Quite wholeheartedly, in fact.

But my muse came to me, slammed me to the ground and hissed into my ear that I have to write this or she'll do really mean and horrible things to me. And I really believe that she will because she is very evil like that.

But. This one is a finished work. I have it all done, but I need to edit and refine and determine just where chapter breaks need to be and whatnot ... so it'll come with a daily posting thing... Fingers crossed I don't decide that a new chapter needs to be added or something stupid like that ... anyhooooo.

I certainly hope that you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or any of the recognizable characters... Seriously wish I did, though. Like, let me write a season of Doctor Who so I can fix up all the crap that has happened these past few years. My checklist: River Song. Emasculating the Daleks. River Song. plot holes. River Song... Oh, did I mention we need to get rid of River Song?

~~oooOOOooo~~

The TARDIS thrashed, whined, pitched and volleyed as she struggled against the coordinate information that the Doctor had entered into her onboard computer. That wasn't where he needed to be. Those coordinates were the very _last_ place that her thief needed to be heading to.

There was somewhere else so much more important that she needed to take him to. _Someone_ so much more important that needed his help right now, and time was ticking down. Her window was closing so quickly as her thief's shadow drew closer to the terrified soul who needed immediate and hurried assistance.

In over a millennia of partnership, she'd think that the Doctor would know by now not to continue fighting her when she was so insistent that the course be altered. She threw a violent temper tantrum like a screaming toddler wanting her way; with the flailing of telepathic arms and legs, and squirmed free of the Doctor's arms to run them all in a much different direction.

With a whine of apology toward the three companions being tossed around inside her console room – but none offered to the Time Lord who should know better than to argue – the TARDIS screeched loudly and blew apart her thief's commands with a spray of sparks.

She could feel her terror and her heartbreak. She could see scars that ran deeper than just the surface of her delicate skin. She could feel the confusion and the betrayal; and she sobbed. Sobbed for the damaged and tender soul that was still woven around her own. Sobbed for the suffering of three …. No … _four_ .. hearts.

Four?

The TARDIS let out a horrified shriek that pierced sharply into the minds of all of her current travellers.

For the love of Time's vortex, no….

TARDIS fought harder against her pilot's command. The Wolf may have vowed never again to howl out for her Storm, but TARDIS was not going to allow that to happen.

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Doctor picked himself up off the ground, stumbled back onto his belly, and then - after disentangling his gangly limbs – drew himself to a shaking stand. He spared a glance toward the three members of his party, who were themselves in their own stages of rising up off the floor.

"I hope that noone's hurt," he muttered distractedly in an attempt to appear as though he was focused on the safety of his guests and not the worrying why's of his ship's sudden erratic behavior. He listened to a brief three-way promise that no one was hurt, and then focused his attention on the rotor column in front of him.

"And what's wrong with you, then, Sexy?" he muttered under his breath as he dripped his eyes to scan the console for anything that may have been out of line. "What's got you all bothered?"

River Song winced as she rolled her shoulder to ease the ache of it striking against the floor as she fell. "Did you correctly programme the special coordinates before dematerialization, Sweetie?"

"I did," he answered distractedly as he pulled the monitor across the console to investigate any potential error messages.

"And did you get the all-clear from the TARDIS," she continued as she walked around the console, dragging her finger along each of the controls as she walked. "Because you know that if a woman decides that she doesn't want to _go your way_ , then you should really listen to her." Her gait and her body language suggested that she was flirting, but the rake of her eyes across the controls indicated that she searched for the answer as earnestly as he did.

The Doctor answered her query with a push of the display into her line of sight. Although the data scrolled along the screen via the pulse of a circular Gallifreyan symbol in the centre of the screen, he was fully aware that River Song could loosely interpret it.

"Programming coordinates set and accepted by TARDIS," he growled in return. "And I thank you for your lack of faith in my programming skills, River."

River Song shrugged a shoulder and tossed a hand through her hair. "Well mistakes have been known to happen from time to time," she sang with a smile and a wink. "When you've found yourself _distracted_ that is."

He didn't lift his eyes off a secondary monitor set flat into the control panel, but he lifted his brows and maybe his shoulders in a shrug. "Time Lords don't get distracted, River." He squeaked uncomfortably as the tip of her finger met with his arm and drew a long line up and across his shoulders to sweep down along the other side of him.

"Oh, Time Lords can be distracted, Sweetie. Quite easily in fact."

"River," he begged lightly. "Please. Not now."

She rolled her eyes dramatically and pressed her hands into the console to stand analytically at his side. "Okay. Then how about her power? Did you allow enough time to power up the Vortex Primer? I know that the Transit Switch has been a little temperamental of late…"

"Power was more than adequate," he snapped as he pushed himself off his hands and began a stalk around the console. "The Coordinates were sound, dematerialization switched activated. The Parking break was disengaged. Believe me, River. All the steps necessary for our proposed landing at Ferouko-7 were completed in a text-book manner."

She narrowed her eyes at his irritation. "I was just checking," she hissed through her teeth, "that no steps were missed."

"There are 387 stages to a TARDIS Vortex Flight," he growled back. "Of which, you only seem to know five." He thrust a finger toward the corridor that led to the library. "Now until you've updated your knowledge on TARDIS flight controls and troubleshooting enough to take your skills beyond those of a first year cadet, I suggest that you _zip it_ – oh I like that – and leave the problem solving to the Time Lord."

She moved in close to him, her nose against his and her breath puffing at his lip. "Don't take your frustration out on me, _Sweetie_ ," she warned hotly. "I don't take kindly to misdirected aggression."

"And I take a much less kind approach to passengers of my TARDIS telling me how to fly one." He backed a full stride away from her and snatched the monitor back toward him and shifted his gaze between the monitor and the keyboard underneath. "So for once, River. Stop with your endless self-righteous condescension and let me work alongside my own ship to solve this problem."

Her jaw dropped lightly, but set hard as her eyes steeled in annoyance. "There's no need to be rude."

He snorted, but didn't look at her. "I'm the Doctor. There hasn't been a single incarnation of me that _hasn't_ been rude." He frowned as he focused on the monitor. "If you know me even half as well as you say you do, then you'd at least know _that_." The furrow in his brow tightened as the image on the monitor switched from flight instrument data to a live feed of the outside of the ship. His speech slowed somewhat. "Rude is my _thing._ I've carefully cultivated and nurtured my rudeness into an art form." His expression lengthened and his voice weakened just lightly. "It should be looked upon and revered and on display in the Braxiatel Collection…"

There was slight distress in his voice as his words tapered out, and Amy was quick to move to his side and place her hand on his wrist. "Doctor, are you alright?"

His eyes were locked on the screen and his jaw hung low. "I'm always alright."

Amy noted the shimmer of watering eyes, and his lightly wettening inhales though his nose indicated to her that he was very much far from alright. As she firmed up her hold on his wrist, she looked toward the monitor to find the source of his upset. She was disappointed to find the image panned wide upon a crowd of people rather than a specific individual.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," she offered him gently as her eyes scanned the grainy image on the monitor.

His words passed brokenly over his lips in a quiet answer devoid of any actual tone of voice. "I think I have," he replied sadly. He lifted his eyes to the rotor column and grimaced an expression of absolute loss and heartache. "Is this why you fought against me just now, old girl? To bring me here? To show me _her?"_ He slammed both hands down on the console as the TARDIS responded in blips and beeps and then zoomed tight onto the image of a woman. "Is this why you brought me here for? Because you _think_ you found her?"

Any's breath sucked in hard, but nowhere near as hard as the breath that gasped into River Song's mouth as she viewed the image on a secondary monitor.

"She's locked inside another parallel with … with _Him_!" The Doctor winced as the image stilled on the woman. "How cruel are you?" he asked his ship sadly.

"And just who is _she_?" Amy queried worriedly with a sharp look up toward River Song. "Do you know who she is?"

River Song shook her head. Her eyes were wide and her expression stunned as she gagged out a pair of sounds before she could find the words to answer. "I. I have no idea."

"Competition by the looks of it," Rory muttered without hiding any of his surprise at that statement.

The Doctor shook his head. "No, Rory. Not competition." He heard the exhale of relief huff past River's lips and spared her a glance before he looked at the door to his TARDIS. "It's just a joke. A cruel, cruel joke sent by the universe to make sure that I'm continually tortured."

"That's dramatic even for you," Amy puffed out with wide eyes. Her eyes maintained their flare as she looked toward River Song, who kept her eyes on the image displayed on the monitor. "But it's good to know that you don't have any competit…"

"Amy," River breathed in warning. "Don't…"

The Doctor snapped a look to his ginger-haired companion and offered her a smile that had at least a small amount of warmth in it. "With _her_ , there exists no competition against anyone at all." His eyes shifted back to the door and he licked at his lip as though searching for the answer to a decision that needed to be made.

"None?"

The Doctor shook his head. "None. There can never be anyone who could compete with her." He bounced from foot to foot a moment and harshly raked his fingers through his hair. He stopped bouncing and then let out a breath through pursed lips. He actually smiled as he clapped his hands and then rubbed them together then gestured toward the doorway. "And so just in case … do excuse me a moment. There's something I need to do. I won't be long."

Amy watched as the Doctor bounded up the stairs toward the front doors of the TARDIS. She kept her eyes on him, but leaned toward River Song. " _No competition_ ," she repeated with a smile. "That's a declaration for you."

"Don't misinterpret him," River Song answered shortly with a hint of sorrow in her voice. "The Doctor obliquely saying that there exists no competition between me and the woman in this image has more than one construal."

Amy's brow creased tightly together and she watched as River Song clutched tightly at the console and then slowly pushed herself up and off it. River closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath, holding it before letting it explode out from between her lips. She shook her head, and then her shoulders and looked toward Amy and Rory with a fake smile pasted across her lips. "Well? Isn't your curiosity as to the identity of this woman just killing you as much as it is me?"

Amy's hand snapped up. She held her thumb and index finger about a centimetre apart. "Just a little."

"A little?"

She rolled her eyes. "Okay. A lot."

"Then let's go, shall we?"

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Doctor curled his long and lanky body around a door he barely opened to move from the inner dimension of his TARDIS out into the dimension of the world outside her doors. He closed his eyes as he inhaled the scent of the world at his feet. His inhale was deep and he held his head low as he let his senses tell him exactly where he had been taken.

He didn't need to rely on the TARDIS navigation to tell him that he was on Earth. (He materialised on Earth so frequently that it truly was more home to him than anywhere else – including Gallifrey….

Gallifrey had ceased to be his home so, oh so long ago. Long before the Time War had erased it from existence, Gallifrey was lost to him. It was lost to him when he was cast out and disowned by his family and shunned by the Time Lord Society as a whole when he was still barely out of the loom.

Gallifrey and her memory afforded him very little in the way of longing and of hope. And now, to some extent, so had the Earth. It was taken from him when he lost _her_.

That wasn't to say he didn't miss them: Gallifrey and Earth. For all his heartache and losses at the hands of both of them, he had as many joyful memories of them both. He still loved and honoured them deeply.

…In just as much as he loved and honoured every man and woman who came into his life; who shaped and moulded the man he was today. They all gave him something of themselves that he carried along with him from incarnation to incarnation. How could he not? They are all such wonderful, brilliant people…

Especially _her._ His precious girl. _Rose Tyler_.

The declaration in his mind of the superiority of Rose Tyler above all others was a passionate longing.

It had been centuries since the day he last saw her. Close to a four of them, in fact. Three hundred years, seven months, eighteen days, seventeen hours, four minutes and six seconds if he was to be accurate.

Three hundred years, seven months, eighteen days, seventeen hours, four minutes and eight seconds since he'd landed on Bad Wolf Bay in an alternate universe to drop off Jackie, Rose, and his Meta-Crisis.

Three hundred years, seven months, eighteen days, seventeen hours, four minutes and ten seconds since he'd walked away from her without even saying goodbye.

…Once upon a time he burned up a sun just to offer her his most heartfelt farewell.

He swallowed down the regret of not saying goodbye and let his eyes scan the crowd gathered ahead of him. The TARDIS had parked herself on a dusty cobbled road that stood like a balcony over the bustling market place below. This gave the Lord of Time a galley view of the market place back dropped by the ocean and he found himself wearing a grin as he pressed his hands into the ancient stone barrier at the edge of the road and lightly leaned over to take in the noises and the energy of the people below.

There was something to be said about a market place – especially on a technologically driven planet such as Earth. On an world where online shopping and big-box malls held supreme, it was a pleasure to see that a rustic little market place was still able to survive with such life and vitality. Each tiny little stall, many no larger than a few metres square, was a haven of crafts, fresh produce and smelly fish. A tiny little mall full of little canvas-roofed shops.

…And oh, how he loved a little shop.

The Doctor smiled into the dusty breeze that blew gently against his face and ruffled his floppy hair. He closed his eyes and inhaled the smells of fruits, vegetables, fish, seabreeze and sweat. He listened to the calls of the vendors pitching their wares as though it was a symphony crafted by one of the masters themselves.

The symphony was fractured by the creak of his TARDIS doors, and the Doctor opened his eyes and let out a long breath of mild annoyance. "I asked you all to give me a moment," he stated dryly when he felt the shift beside him and smelt the distinctive scent of River Song's perfume.

"You didn't tell us to stay behind, Sweetie," she corrected with a smile in a voice that was far too chirpy. She looked around them and let out a breath of longing. "Greece."

"Rhodes Old Town," he added with a sigh. "Early twenty-second century. Greece had emerged strong after their near bankruptcy in the early Twenty First century, and with the…."

"No need to explain it to me," River cooed with a smile as she petted his arm. "Archaeologist, remember."

He nodded and leaned down on the crumbling wall, supporting his lean on his elbows. "Indeed, River," he answered with a sigh as he let his eyes scan the crowd below. "Nothing left for me to show you now, is there?"

"I think," she whispered huskily into his ear. "You need to let others show _you_ things for a change. What do you think?"

" _Others_ being _you,_ I suspect," he said with a sigh. "And just what marvels of the universe do you have to show me, then?"

"Spoilers."

He did smile slightly at her playfully uttering her catchphrase at him. He knew it was said to draw out a smile; to somehow lighten the air between them after their somewhat terse words in the TARDIS moments ago. He inhaled as he lifted his hand to pat lightly at hers, that still lingered on his arm. He didn't think it at all a condescending gesture, but he gathered that she must've when River let out a huff of annoyance and snatched her hand free.

"When you've finished brooding," she said through her teeth into his ear. "Then come and talk to me."

"When I've finished," he began in a repeat of hers, only to find his words captured inside his throat when he saw the golden-blonde hair of a companion he thought lost so long ago. Her name ghosted out from between his parched lips and seemed to hover in the air in front of his mouth as his vision seemed to zoom in and edit out anyone else that milled around her.

How had he not immediately isolated her from the crowd? She wore thick, tight, black fatigue-style trousers tucked into a dusted black pair of military boots. Her torso was hidden underneath an equally tight crimson long-sleeved t-shirt tucked underneath a thick canvas belt. It had to be 40-degrees celcius outside today. Everyone around her wore light colours and loose fabrics, and exposed as much skin as was considered decent in order to find a breath of cool on an otherwise hot day.

The Doctor straightened up his arms in order to perch himself higher to look around better at the crowds in the market place. If Rose Tyler was swanning about a market place on a blisteringly hot day wearing battle clothing, then surely she had a team supporting her, right?

…actually the better question was _how is she here_ and _where is the Meta-Crisis_?

Okay, two questions. Both of them equally important. Well. Not quite. The Doctor really couldn't've have given a Woprat's fart about where the Meta-Crisis was… Then again. Perhaps that question was very important. The TARDIS landed them at this point in time for a reason, and that reason was a reason that needed to be reasoned….

He grinned to himself. "That's a lot of _reasons_."

Amy, who had strolled up beside him to replace River Song looked along her shoulder to him. "Pardon me?"

"Nothing," he croaked with a shake of his head. "Absolutely nothing. Just thinking out aloud to myself, after seeking expert opinion by taking to myself, of course."

She nodded a knowing bop of her head and blew out through pursed lips as she used a jut of her chin to gesture toward Rose Tyler below. "Is that the girl you were looking for?"

He gave a very slow blink of his eyes in reply and nodded his head. He inhaled deeply as he looked back down to Rose and let his eyes trace over a figure that was much less youthful than it had been when he saw her last. Her curvature was more defined and smooth now that her youthful chubbiness was gone. Awkwardness had most definitely been replaced by confidence as was illustrated by the straightness of her spine and the slight back pull in her shoulders that no doubt accented what he imagined was a very pert breast (if only she would turn around so he could confirm that). There was a strength in her legs, and even without great focus he could see the taut muscles of her thighs and buttocks…

…Not that he was looking, of course. He was absolutely not looking with any form of longing upon a backside that he absolutely not be looking at. No-siree. He would admit, however, to focusing on the way the ends of her long, blonde, pony-tail curled into loose ringlets right at the very end, which just happened to flick right at the upper rise of Rose's backside.

"She's tiny."

The Doctor blinked and found himself spluttering just slightly at that comment. "She's _what_?"

Amy shrugged. "That woman down there," she clarified. "She's. Well. She's tiny." She petted her hand in the air to indicate a small stature. "I mean, when you compare her to me and River." She cast a steeled look at the Doctor. "You know. Your _wife_."

"In the TARDIS library," he began drolly. "There is a book about alternate timelines and their relevance to actual timelines. It's in Gallifreyan, of course, but I'll have TARDIS translate it for you." He stood tall and set one hand on his hip as the other rubbed at his chin. "There is also one regarding the legitimacy of weddings as deemed by Gallifreyan council that might be of interest to you…"

Amy hissed at him for quiet, and even slapped a couple of times at his arm. "Yeah, yeah," she huffed out. "Try and play smart-arse another time. Right now, you need to work out what has your mysterious girl down there so terrified."

The Doctor sucked in a breath and pressed his hands down on the wall once again. "What do you mean?"

Amy gestured urgently to the market place below with a flick of her hand. "Doctor," she managed urgently. She grabbed at his bow-tie with practiced hands and tugged him to look over the edge. "Look at her. She's as skittish as a mouse down there."

"Rose, scared?" The Doctor questioned quietly as he looked through a frown of confusion down into the market place. "Rose isn't scared of anything. She's the bravest person I've ever…."

His words fell when he finally took in the way she held herself on the street below. She wasn't taut with confidence and a more womanly physique. She was as taut as a coiled spring ready to snap. He watched as she hitched shallow inhales and slowly released her exhales. He watched the static movements of her head as she took in her own surroundings. Once or twice he watched as she staggered to avoid a collision with a stranger that was ignorant to her presence in the market.

She was plainly and clearly terrified.

"What do you think has spooked her," Amy asked softly. "And who is she, I wonder? Is she from this time? From this _planet_?" She cast the Doctor a side glance. "Which is a legitimate question considering _you_ know her."

The Doctor was ready to launch from where he was and drop the two storeys to the marketplace below. "Her name," he answered quietly. "Is Rose Tyler. Early twentieth century. Human. Female. Very female."

"Yeah. I got that, thanks."

"She's a former companion of mine," he continued. "And a very special friend of mine."

With that, Rose Tyler turned on her heel and spun to face them both directly. She swallowed as she lifted her head and her gaze to the pair looming high above her.

The Doctor stopped breathing when her eyes met his. He'd regenerated since he saw her last. There was no way at all that she'd know who he was. Despite his need to have her know who he was, the Doctor knew there'd be no recognition in her eyes.

But as their eyes met, the hardness and fear inside her eyes softened into recognition. The lengthened and guarded expression on her face tightened and broke into a smile across lips that parted to mouth his name. He couldn't do much more than smile in reply himself. Her name whispered across his lips once more, and he was ready to launch over the wall and take that magnificent woman into his arms and then fight off whatever entity it was that had her so frightened only moments ago.

"Is that _her_ , Sweetie," River cooed over his shoulder as she moved to take up her place on the other side of him from Amy. "Her name is Rose?"

The smile that was on Rose Tyler's face fell out completely with the appearance of River Song at the Doctor's side. The fear that she had been ineffectually trying to hide bloomed suddenly, and fully, across her entire form.

The Doctor yelled out her name as Rose skittered backward a couple of steps, shaking her head and mouthing out a two-letter negative over and over again. She held up her hand and shook her head in his direction in a poor demand for him to stay back. He could see her tears glistening in the Grecian sun and watched with a shattering heart as the tears spilled from her eyes and onto the reddening apples of her cheeks.

He inhaled, readying to call out to her again, but found himself beaten to the call by a familiar, and long buried voice. The Doctor's breath hitched, and he was sure that he hears Rose whimper as the form of his Meta-Crisis self strode up purposefully through the crowd toward her.

The Doctor looked on with actual scrutiny at the outfit his Meta-Crisis had chosen to wear in this incarnation. He strode with confidence across the market wearing a black and grey pinstripe suit with a red shirt and tie and black chucks and sported facial hair that was very carefully clipped and manicured to border his face rather that truly dress it.

"What in the name of Gallifrey is _he_ wearing…?"

"I think the more important question, Sweetie," River said with a growl. "Is just what he's put that girl through that has made her so unbelievably terrified of him."

The Doctor snatched his attention from his Meta-Crisis self, and flicked his eyes toward Rose. He felt himself shudder to see the abject terror in her eyes as the pinstriped man drew closer to her. Her delicate hands flew up to cover her mouth as she shook her head and tried to slowly back away from him.

The Doctor's eye twitched to watch her slump in defeat, without even daring to fight, when the man in pinstripes caught up to her and slid his arms possessively around her hips. The Doctor growled when Rose struggled vainly against the MEta-Crisis, but ultimately gave up and fell with her head against his chest.

"No," he breathed to himself. "No. No. No!"

He was vaguely aware of the found of River pulling out her weapon, and of her quick movement to leap over the wall to drop in to assist. He gave her a short look and then flicked his eyes toward the pair on the ground as he launched himself over the wall and down onto the ground.

River and the Doctor ran immediately toward the Meta-Crisis and Rose, both of them thundering out their own style of demand for the man to release Rose.

The Meta-Crisis looked innocently toward the Doctor and let their eyes meet and lock. He mouthed _hello_ and winked and then looked down to Rose with a smile.

"Say hello, Darling," he said with a voice of absolute reverence.

Rose shuddered against him, but kept her cheek pressed against his chest. She opened her eyes and looked toward the Doctor and River Song with a smile. "Hello, Doctor," she breathed softly as she held onto the Meta-Crisis with a tighter hold.

…The picture of bliss and happiness…

The Meta Crisis kissed atop her head and lifted his sonic screw driver. "And buh-bye."

With a buzz and a flash of blue, the pair vanished from the market place.

The Doctor gagged as he fell to his knees in the place that his Rose Tyler had been standing only a second ago. "What? Where? Where'd they go?"

River Song leaned forward as she holstered her gun into the back waistband of her trousers. "Right. Are you gonna tell me who they were?"

The Doctor slumped in place and frowned at the floor, and at a fallen strand of blonde hair on the ground. He lifted it with his finger and held it to the light. "I'd rather know how they were here," he answered curiously as the strand of hair shifted in the breeze and then flew off his finger toward the crystalline blue ocean. "The walls were sealed. Forever…"

~~oooOOOooo~~

Above, against a wall on a dusty cobbled road that overlooked a bustling market place below, the very last TARDIS in the universe let out a soulful cry of utter devastation.

…They were too late…


	2. Valeyard

A/N: I want to take a min to say a blushing thanks for your comments on my chapter that wasn't really a chapter. My intention really wasn't to get an ego stroke out of it, but you guys made me feel so much better with your kind words and encouragement.

I shouldn't have fed the trolls, I know that ... but I am honestly so sick and tired of the consistent hate that Rose Tyler fans receive from River Song fans that I snapped. For Rassilon's sake, just let whoever ship whoever they want to ship and leave them be with it. Your world ain't gonna end because they sail on another ship, you know. If it is your belief that the Doctor is a better man in the presence of a cheating, stealing, lying, physchotic Mary Sue, then more power to you. I personally think that a man like the Doctor should grow to be a "better" man .. which is what he was when he was with Rose.

But, hey .. that's my opinion... I don't believe that the Doctor should only ever love just the once... Heck, I shipped him hard with Romana, Tegan, Sarah-Jane, Rose, and as much as I wasn't a fan of her at all, I actually might've shipped Eleven and Clara a little... The man can love as often as he can - let's just make the recipient of that love worthy of it, okay? If she cheats, she's not. If she lies, she's not. If she steals from him, she's not ...

/soapbox rant

To the chapter:

Uhm. I'm really not sure about whether or not to put warnings for this chapter. This deals with a dark and flip-flopping crazy man and a fearful wife ... and I'm not quite sure if that might be a trigger point for anyone... It could qualify, I reckon, but I'm not quite sure how to tag that because I don't quite know what to tag it under...

Tentoo is sinceriously messed up, yeah ... he's not in his right head, so he's going to flip and flop and not be right... Sorry if that offends or anything like that.

...Please feel free to tap me on the shoulder with tag ideas if you feel they're needed.

I hope this doesn't disturb you. I hope it doesn't confuse you. I really and honestly hope you enjoy this.

~~oooOOOooo~~

The crackling, static-charged force field that surrounded them hadn't had a chance to completely dissipate into nothingness before her pinstriped Doctor forcibly shoved Rose Tyler inches forward and away from him. His hands gripped firmly at her arms – just below the swell of her shoulder – with such intensity that she knew it would leave bruises.

He held his eyes closed and panted several deep and calming breaths before he finally dared speak.

"My Rose Tyler," he said softly. His eyes opened slowly and the grip he had on her arms softened enough that he could run his hands up and down. He dipped his chin to look into her eyes with a cheeky look through his lashes and smiled. "It seems to me that you've forgotten rule number one."

She hitched in a fast inhale. "Doctor…"

His tongue clicked before she could continue what he knew would be a pathetic attempt to try and make excuses. With a shake of his head he drew the fingertips of his left hand along the sharp line of her jaw. "Rose. That's not my name." His voice held slight condescension in it. "It hasn't been for a very long time now, has it?"

"I'm sorry," she rushed out.

"Have you forgotten that, too?" he asked curiously as he lifted his eyes to the top of her head in an exaggerated display of analysis. His eyes then fell to hers again and he spoke to her as he might a child. "Did you hit your head?"

Rose shook her head with tight movements. After curling the tip of her tongue out of the corner of her mouth and drawing in a shuddering breath, Rose breathed out a multi-syllable string of sound that left her lips in song.

He closed his eyes and inhaled through a smile. "Say it again, Rose."

She repeated the sound, but this time finished by adding a sentiment taught to her long ago, before she had any confidence at all in curling her tongue around the language of the Time Lords; back when a hand grew into an excitable man who wanted nothing more than to embrace life and love and everything else that he couldn't when he was the last child of Gallifrey.

"No matter what," she breathed in English. She let her fingers dance lightly at the waistband of his trousers; at his hip. "Forever."

The desired effect was devastating and immediate as the Doctor crushed his mouth to hers in a ferocious kiss that was able to push her backward and up against the thick edge of a wooden tabletop without him even having to use his hands or body to guide her there.

Rose whimpered into his mouth as the unbridled passion of her husband that fired any time she breathed out that simple three-syllable English word. She shuddered in wait for the feel of his hands to clutch tightly the very apex of her thighs to lift her against him. There was no doubt in her mind that he would. In thirty years of marriage he never faltered in reacting that way when she combined his language and hers to express her commitment to him.

He purred as he plundered the inside of her mouth with a relentless tongue. His purr shifted to a growl as he gripped hard at her backside and lifted her the required few inches to sit her on the tabletop. He slid his hands from her bum to the tops of her thighs, shifting them high enough that his thumbs hooked deeply into the crease that folded in the front of her trousers.

She panted out his name – eleven lyrical syllables – and wriggled against him as he stepped in between the part on her legs.

He smiled into the kiss and then ended it abruptly. He pulled back with a wet sucking sound and licked at his lip before wiping it with his thumb.

"Rule number one," he repeated huskily. "Rose. What is it?"

She whimpered out a sound of bafflement and shifted her hands in an attempt to draw his mouth back to hers.

"Uh-uh-uh," he chided with a chuckle. He pressed the length of his finger down across her lips and drew back far enough to be able to both loom over her and stare into her eyes. "I asked you a question."

Rose swallowed unsurely. Unnerved slightly by his looming stare, she writhed a little and attempted to draw herself backward. "D-don't," she stammered lightly. "Don't…"

"Wander…" he supplied with an encouraging rise in his brows.

"Don't wander off," she answered fully. Her eyes shifted off to one side in shame and she reached up to her shoulder as though to pull up the fallen bra strap underneath the long sleeve of her shirt.

He nodded a short bob of his head. "We've known each other, well, for thirty seven years now – relative time for you of course. Not quite so long for me."

She nodded, but didn't make any comment.

"And when we landed in the Blitz – oh, so long ago now – that rule was established, yeah?" His head tiled to one side. "Of course you immediately defied that rule, which I could quite easily forgive at the time, what, with your impetuous youthful curiosity and excitement and all." He slid his thumb over her jaw and to her chin to lever her face back to his. "But now you've grown up. You've matured…"

"I'm sorry," she breathed out remorsefully.

His mouth dropped open so that he could huff out a pair of sounds of chiding. "Uh-uh. Let me finish."

Rose nodded and then winced in apology, but she didn't say anything.

He smiled a toothy smile and then kissed her forehead with a lingering press of his lips. He released her and then took a single and long stride backward. "Rose," he began in a breathy voice. "You know that my entire universe is inside you, yeah? That everything I do, have done and will do is for your safety and happiness." He stepped forward and lifted his hands to cup her face in a tender hold. His voice softened to urgency. "You understand that, don't you?"

Her face contorted into a wince of apology. "I do," she answered with breathless affirmation. "Doctor, I do."

His face immediately hardened and he snatched his hands from her face with a growl. "I told you not to call me that," he snarled as he took a step back from her. He twisted to the side and snorted out a trio of displeased breaths, and then looked down his shoulder at her. He lifted an arm to point toward where she was seated on the tabletop.

"I am _not_ him," he vowed fiercely. "I am not the self-righteous coward who cast away the most important person to enter his life – any of them – and then locked her behind an impenetrable wall so he could scarper off like a frightened tafelshrew back out into the universe…" his face contorted as his words trailed off and morphed into a string of lyrical syllables that Rose knew beyond all doubt were the filthiest of Gallifreyan profanities.

"I know that you're not…"

"I am _not_ that coward, Rose," he continued harshly. "And every time you use that name…" He spun to face her directly. His hands folded tight across his chest and his chin lowered dramatically to that he could glare through furious brows at her. "It's been thirty two years since Bad Wolf Bay," he stated with a growl. "Thirty two years since he took everything from the both of us and abandoned us to the alternate universe, yet you still pine for him, don't you?"

Rose's eyes widened at the accusation and at the venom in the voice that asked it. She shook her head tightly. "No." She spoke his name with only the slightest of shudders in her voice. "I don't. Not now. Not anymore." She opened her arms to him. "I'm yours. Only yours. Always. Forever." She tipped her head to one side with urging. "Please tell me you believe me."

His stance softened and he released the taut cross of his arms so that he could rub at one eye with a finger. His voice lost its edge. "I really wish I could believe that, Rose. I really do."

"What can I do to make you believe that?" she queried with slight worry in her voice. It fell to a whisper that held fear in the answer. "Tell me."

His head snapped up and his anger fell firmly back in place. "First things first," he growled as he quickly stalked toward her. He roughly snapped open the thigh pocket of her black pants and tore a thin tube from inside with enough force to make her yelp and shrink back from him. "This," he held it up to her. "Has got to go."

Rose's eyes flashed wide and horrified. "No. You can't…"

He hurled it against the wall without taking his eyes off her. He didn't even flinch when it collided hard with the wall and shattered with an explosive electrical pop and zap. "Of everyone who has ever entered my life – and trust me, Rose Tyler, there have been more than a few people – you are supposed to be the one I trust."

"You can," she vowed fiercely. "Vale. Please. You know you can trust me."

He laughed a rueful chuckle. "You stole from me," he said breathlessly as he looked away from her. "Then you ran from me."

She widened her eyes to offer him desperate innocence and shook her head. "No. That's not right. That's not what happened."

His brows lifted, and his eyes widened, but he kept the focus of his stare low and off to the side. "Oh I want to believe you, Rose. I do." His brows fell but his eyes remained wide. "I want to believe that you didn't steal my cross-dimensional beacon, attach its signal to another Gallifreyan time vessel, and navigate yourself across the universal walls to land directly in front of his TARDIS." He lifted his eyes finally to hers. "I'd love to believe that the jump beacon can be activated and executed so easily that it can activate accidentally in the course of your daily routine."

Rose sniffed.

"That said, well," he drawled facetiously. "Destroying it is a necessity, isn't it? Imagine if we have kids, Rose. They'd be toddling around, come across it, and …" He clapped his hands loudly together, which startled Rose enough to yelp. "Whammo! Off to the other side of a dimensional wall." He rubbed at the back of his neck. "Really have to work on my child-proofing, don't I?"

Rose's eyes locked on the shattered piece of technology on the white tiled floor of the room with longing. She winced as it zapped and sparked in a fight for life. "Vale," she said softly without lifting her eyes. "I'm so sorry. I really don't know what I was thinking."

"You want to leave me, don't you?" he asked with no small measure of petulance buried inside his sadness. "Thirty years of devotion and sacrifice, and the first glimmer of hope you have to go back to him, you take it."

"Don't be daft," she ground out through clenched teeth. "I might want to cross back over to my original universe, Vale." She slid off the table and stalked toward him. "But I have no desire at all to ever – _ever_ – see him again." She curled her arms around his neck to coax him into a cuddle. " _You_ are the only child of Gallifrey I want." She breathed out his Gallifreyan name against his ear.

He turned into her and pressed his forehead to hers. "Do you want to leave me, Rose?"

"I want to leave _here_ ," she stated firmly. "I need to get y…" she cleared her throat. "I mean _me_ free of this place."

His arms tightened around her to an almost possessive hold. "Why," he practically growled as he drilled his forehead harder against hers. "Haven't I given you everything you want? Marriage, a home, a life where you need for _nothing_?" He inhaled. "Love, Rose. Haven't I given you all the love you want?" He panted against her face. "I breathe you, Rose. I _bleed_ you…."

His face tightened to a wince and he angled his head just slightly as though in pain. "And yet. You still want the love of the one who doesn't even know the meaning of the word."

"Valeyard," she begged lightly. "Vale, please."

"I stayed," he hissed through his teeth at her, still with his forehead held tightly against hers. " _I_ was the one who loved you, Rose. I could've run, too, you know. But I didn't. I stayed. I stayed here with you and I loved." He panted. "By Rassilon and the Gods themselves, Rose. I've _loved_ you."

"I love you too," she whispered in reply.

"Then why?" he begged softly. "Why did I find you in the market place with _him_?"

Rose sniffed wetly. "I've never been good at navigation, Vale. I'm almost as rubbish at it as you've always been." She smiled when he chuckled. "I didn't know that it would send me to the TARDIS. Please believe me. After all you've said about him, all that you've told me about who he _truly_ is. Vale. _Why_ would I ever go to him?"

He kept his voice quiet and almost reverent. "You should've asked me, Rose. I would've taken you myself." He smiled. "A vacation. You and me. Wouldn't that be wonderful, Rose? Just you and me, alone, reliving the early days of _us_. Making love and being in love and travelling the world."

"That'd be so nice," she whispered longingly.

He snapped away from her and gave a single laugh as he stalked toward the quiet little device on the floor and gave it a kick. "Well. Can't do that now, can we? Nope. Not now. Not. Right. Now."

"But you have another one, yeah?"

He slowly cranked his head to look toward her with a stare full of distrust that was heated enough to make her step a stride backward. "Why?"

She swallowed uncomfortably enough that she aspirated part of it, which made her cough.

"Not ready," he murmured to himself. He walked toward her to give her some hits across her shoulder blades to help with her cough. "Not me. Not you. And definitely not the device."

"Then forget about cross dimensional travel," she pleaded as she tentatively took a couple of steps toward him. "Let's just go. You and me. Let's throw a dart at the map of the world, pack up a few things and just _go."_ She made it to his side and curled her hand around his elbow. "Please, Love. Let's get away from here." She looked around the room with disgust. "Get out of this place and just run. Run like we used to, yeah?"

He looked down into her face and offered her a brief smile. He dragged the pad of his thumb along the corner of her lip and across her cheek, and then brushed his mouth softly against hers. "I can't leave. You know that."

"Yes you can," she implored him inside a desperate whine. It wasn't beneath her to beg. "Please, Vale. I need this, and so do you. Come with me. Run."

"What you _need_ ," he suggested quietly. "Is to spend some time with Dr. Song."

Immediately rose began to tremble in his hold. "No. Please. No."

He clicked his tongue a couple of times and drew himself away from her. He had to smile when she quickly struggled to cuddle against him again. "My precious girl," he cooed as he allowed her to mould herself against him once more. "I need to make sure that you didn't hurt yourself when you crossed through the void without any form of protection."

She clutched onto him tightly. "I'm fine. I promise you I'm fine."

"Are you a _Doctor_?"

"I'll go to any other Doctor," she begged him. "Just please, Vale. Not her. No more."

He held tightly at her trembling form and sighed against her hair. "You have such a special physiology, Rose, that I can't risk you seeing any other Doctor." He dropped his nose onto the top of her head and blew against her hair. "Just imagine what they'll so when they discover how special you are. The experiments they'll perform…"

"And you think _she's_ any different," she growled, ending her question with his Gallifreyan name. she shoved herself off him and tried to back off, only to have him grab her back into him. "Do you have any idea what kinds of invasive tests that she puts me through every single time you send me to her?"

"Anything River does, Rose…" He sighed. "Is necessary. For you. For me. For _us_." He kissed at her head. "To keep you safe, my precious girl." He nuzzled into her hair. "To make sure that for the rest of your lives you have someone with you to protect you." He kissed her hair. "To love you." He lowered his mouth to her cheek. "To worship and honour you."

She stiffened in his hold. "What do you mean?"

"Forever, Rose," he answered with his lips against the side of her mouth. "That word that belongs to you and me."

A husky voice chuckled from the doorway. "Would you like some wine with that chest, Valeyard?"

Rose shrank against her husband and let out a whimper. "No. Please."

A smile broke out onto his face; a toothy grin that stretched almost the full space between his ears. "Doctor Song! What're you doing here?"

She rolled her eyes and shrugged coyly. "Oh. I heard reports of atmospheric disturbances centred around this office with wavelength signatures identical to your dimensional beacon." She shrugged off the doorway and looked at her nails as she approached the pair. "I figured that your beloved wife might've gotten curious and therefore accidentally activated the beacon."

"And how'd you figure that?" he asked with a smirk.

"By the second signature that overrode the first," she answered with a wink and a lick t her lip. "Which means you had to go and find our little adventurer, didn't you?" She dropped her eyes to Rose. "Did you get yourself into any trouble, Rose?" Her eyes widened cheekily. "Or did you meet anyone of any interest?"

The Valeyard's face stoned up. His voice hardened. "Noone that would interest you, River."

"Oh," she sang. "Sweetie, Judging by your sudden switch from fun to irrationally jealous, I'm quite sure she met someone very _interesting_ on the other side."

He snorted a sound of annoyance. "I'll need you to take a look at Rose for me, River. Make sure that she hasn't exposed herself to any unpleasant void particles or Prime Universe viruses."

Rose grunted. "I'm fine."

River hummed with a smile. "It's best that you let me be the judge of that, young lady." She made a sweeping motion in the air. "My office is already prepared for you. So off you go. I'll be along in a minute. I just need to speak to your loving husband for a moment."

"I'm fine," Rose growled, burrowing deeper into the Valeyard's pinstriped chest.

He lightly wriggled to draw her away from him. Holding her at arm's length, he leaned forward deeply in order to press a kiss to her forehead. "For me," he said tenderly. "For _my_ peace of mind. Please Rose."

She winced as she nodded and pulled away from him. Her voice was a mere whisper when she offered him a resigned agreement. "I'll see you later?"

"I'll have a special dinner made for us," he promised. "In front of the fireplace. You'd like that, yeah?" He smiled and traced his finger tip down along the bridge of her nose and over her lips. "Red wine and making love on the sheepskin rug by the fire."

"Yeah," she answered quietly with a fake smile on her lips. "I'd like that."

"Then go," he urged. "The quicker your exam is over, the faster we can come together, yeah?"

He held onto his gentle smile as he watched her nod and then leave the room. The moment the door closed behind her, the smile fell. His entire stature slouched in annoyance. "That was far too close."

River Song nodded slowly. "I take it she came across your counterpart over there?"

"Almost," he snarled. "Of course the old man wasn't as quick as the younger version." He looked to her. "I barely got to her in time."

She hooked her arm around his elbow and led him toward the table. With practiced movements, she lifted herself up onto her toes to move into a seat upon the wooden top. "Come here," she purred as she drew him close to stand in between the part of her legs. "We're almost ready, Valeyard."

He dropped his ear against her breast and closed his eyes as he fell into her hold. "How much longer?"

She stroked at his head and hooked her ankles behind his back. "That depends, Sweetie. Do you want her to live, or to die?"

He stiffened in her hold.

"You can take it all and sacrifice her," she continued. "Or you take what you need, let her survive, and go with your original plan of crossing dimensions to go after him for everything he has left."

He unhooked her ankles from behind his back and stepped away from her. "I'm not losing her," he vowed with a snarl. "She's not a sacrifice. I will die before she does. Rose is all I have in the universe."

"You have _me_ ," she offered with a wink.

" _Noone_ has you, River," he shot back hotly. "So don't even pretend to offer what you aren't willing to give."

"We are something magnificent, you and me," she countered with a lick at her lip. "I can give you what you want; what you need. For you…"

"Don't mistake lust for love," he warned darkly. "You are spitfire and rockets. You ignite something in me and sate a hunger that I could never beg of Rose to satisfy." He thrust his hands deep into his trouser pockets. "But Rose. She gives me something that no one else could _ever_ give. She makes me a better person – she makes me _want_ to be someone magnificent."

"And me?"

"You are the worst influence in the entire multiverse, Doctor Song."

"I make you a _bad_ boy, then?" She winked. "Nothing wrong with that."

He exhaled a deep breath. "Please see to my wife. Make sure she hasn't done any damage to herself by crossing the void unprotected."

River Song shrugged. "She did it countless times before you were created, Valeyard. I'm sure she's perfectly fine." She then smirked and licked at her lips around a smile as she openly raked her eyes up and down his body. "But if she has given herself mortal injuries and we're left with no choice but to move to plan B…?"

He stepped in close to her, nose to nose. "The only 'Plan B' we have in place," he threatened darkly. "Is the method I'll use to eviscerate you if Rose comes to any harm during your _experiments_. Am I clear?"

She let out a disgusted breath of annoyance. "Perfectly."

He straightened up and gave her a beaming and toothy grin. "Well chop chop, then, Doctor Song," he sang as he gave her backside a pair of firm slaps. "I have plans with my beloved this evening, and so the sooner you check her over the better."

She rolled her eyes, but skipped obediently and even giggled at his touch. She wriggled her fingers in a rather facetious manner as she left the room.

He shook his head and walked back over to the table. He pressed his hands into its surface and leaned down with a drop of his head to let it hang below his shoulders. "Well, _Doctor_ ," he said quietly to himself. "I've done what you couldn't. I've worked out how to cross the dimensional walls, and in time…" He smirked a one-sided smile and slowly lifted his head. "I'll have the power of regeneration in my hands." He stood straight and slid his hands into his trouser pockets. Slowly he let his head rise to look up at the ceiling as though looking up into the stars themselves. "And when I have that, then I'll come for you…"

"…We have a score to settle, you and I."


	3. Realization

A/N: Not really a chapter I wanted to write ... but I only had about 90 mins to write today, and so knowing it would be short, I went back to the TARDIS for a bit 'cause the Doctor had some 'splainin' to do.

Back to Pete's World and some serious darkness in the next chapter. Seriously ... enjoy whatever lightheartedness there is here, because I have a feeling that madame muse has plans for the next chapter that not even I'm ready for...

~~oooOOOooo~~

The TARDIS hummed a sound of sorrow as the Doctor burst in through the front doors and stalked a purposeful stride toward her computers. He was completely ignorant to the presence of both Rory and Amy on the jump seat, and even managed to bustle a knock against Amy's leg as he passed.

She opened her mouth to loudly express her annoyance at being _knocked without apology_ , but was silenced by her husband at her side.

"Leave it," he warned gently with a shake of his head. "Something's wrong. Let him work through it."

Amy huffed and folded her arms across her breast. "But…"

"But _nothing_ ," Rory warned. He then lightly nudged her shoulder with his and gestured toward River Song with a jut of his chin. "I'll lay money that River's going to ask all the questions that _you_ have."

"Yeah, so?"

"And she's much more likely to get him to answer than you are."

Amy curled a lip. She shot a look toward the Doctor, who was currently staring through his brows at the monitor as his fingers tapped fiercely at the keyboard below it. Her eyes then shifted toward Rover Song, who stood back just shy of the Console landing.

That was a rather uncharacteristic behaviour, Amy noted with surprise. Ordinarily River Song would be at the Doctor's side with a flirt or a tease. But not this time. Right now the feisty blonde woman was quietly standing a respectful distance behind him, giving him space, and no doubt formulating a rather long list of questions that the Doctor wouldn't want to answer…

…But that he'd have absolutely no choice in answering.

Rory snuffled slightly against Amy's ear – or was he chuckling – and tapped his fingertip on her knee. "River's grinding her teeth right now," he noted with amusement. "I give her less than ten seconds before the curiosity gets the better of her."

"Five," Amy challenged. "You might want to consider jealousy as the guiding factor here."

Rory's face tightened up. "Oh. Yeah. Missed that."

Amy gave a theatrical sigh and rolled her eyes. "Of course you did. You're a man."

"And in three. Two. One…"

River Song broke from her stoic position at the edge of the landing and quickly found her place beside the Doctor. Her voice was flat, void of any emotion, when she spoke.

"So who is she?"

For a moment, the Doctor continued to let his fingers dance over the keyboard without speaking. His eyes remained on the data stream on the monitor above, flicking left to right, then down and left to right again. When River Song repeated the question, he licked at his lip and shifted the set of his jaw as though he was actually going to answer her. No words left his lips, however. He merely motioned his jaw enough to silently mouth out the Gallifreyan words that were answering his own questions.

River Song let out a growl of annoyance that may or may not have included his name. She then repeated her question with a hiss through her teeth, punctuating each word with both a pause in her delivery and a tap of the side of her firearm on the TARDIS console.

The Doctor violently shoved himself off the console and struck both of his hands against the monitor's edge. "Sepulchasm!"

Rory and Amy flinched at the Doctor's outburst, whereas River Song merely blinked slowly as she wiped spittle from the corner of her eye. "Language, Doctor."

He didn't appear to hear her.

"You can't tell me that," he spat hotly at the monitor. "I just saw her there. Her. Him. Both of them. With both my eyes." He gestured widly between his eyes with a finger. "Four if you count River's. So don't you _dare_ tell me that you can't find any trace of them." He slapped the monitor with both hands as though it might be enough to change the results posted on the screen. "Keep looking!" The screen blinked out with a blip and then clicked back to life with a window full of aggressively spinning Circular Gallifreyan text.

The Doctor laughed darkly under his breath. "I don't want excuses. I want answers. All of them. Every answer to every question, and then give me some bonus information just to make me happy."

River Song put her hand on his arm. "Sweetie," she warned low. "The TARDIS is working through what she can. You pestering her is not going to make her give you the answers you want."

He raised his voice enough to ensure that the TARDIS was listening. "Maybe not, but I'm very sure that she'll try looking a little harder if I threaten to take out her Banshee circuits and…" He jumped back as the monitor sparked and crackled. "Oh," he huffed. "A tantrum. Really?" He began a stalk around the console, careful not to touch it directly, but staying very close to it. " _You_ were the one who brought us here. _You_ were the one who thought it was so very important to drop us off here instead of where I had actually programmed you to go."

He stopped his stalk to turn fully toward the rotor column. "You show her to me. You let me see that she's distressed and probably very much in danger and therefore in need of my help." He sniffed and spun on his heel to resume his stalk around the console. "And then, when I ask you to find her, you tell me it's impossible."

He spun and slammed both hands down onto the console's top. " _Nothing_ is _impossible_!" he thundered out. "Do you hear me? Nothing."

He shoved back off the console and continued to walk. "Not where she's concerned. You know that. _I_ know that." He ran his hand over his neck. "I think the entire multiverse knows that. Impossible just means she might break a bit of a sweat…" He stopped both his word and his stalk when his stride brought him face to face with an obviously frustrated River Song. He dared crack a smile. "Ahh. Yes. That's right. Hello River."

Her arms were folded tightly across her chest, and she didn't look to want to release that hold any time soon. "Are you about finished admonishing the TARDIS for not being immediately able to bypass her programmed scanning protocols…"

"Don't you start sticking up for her," he muttered in reply with a rather facetious roll of his eyes. "Especially not when it was because of her bypassing programming protocols set by her pilot that we are even here to begin with." He kept his eyes on River Song's look of disapproval and flicked out a hand to point at the rotor column. His petulance was such that he was perfectly able to hide his wince of both pain and embarrassment that his arm collided with a thick cable that hung from the ceiling.

"She doesn't listen to a single command that I give her," he continued in a growl.

River Song released one arm from her hold on her breast to roughly slap down the Doctor's arm. "She's doing her best," she seethed in defense of the ship. "And if you continue to berate her like this, then I'll kick you out of the TARDIS doors and leave you here."

"Don't threaten me, River."

"Don't challenge me," she countered with a smile. "Trust me, Doctor. I'm the child of the TARDIS, she'd be more than happy to travel with me." She petted the console and cooed to it. "Wouldn't you, old girl?"

The Doctor's eyes flicked to an unreadable sound that emanated from the rotor column in response, and then switched back to River. His guarded posture relaxed slightly. "Females," he cursed under his breath as he slowly shifted up a suitcase handle lever. "It doesn't matter what species, you are always such a fickle gender. So easy to switch allegiances and break hearts, aren't you?"

"We can be," River agreed flatly. "Especially when we find ourselves faced with a 1200-year old man-child who can throw a tantrum better than any toddler I've ever encountered." She flicked her hand toward the jump seat. "Now. How about you take a seat and explain just who it is that has you all bothered right now."

He shook his head. "No. I think it's probably a better idea that I take you home, Rory and Amy, and let you take your own leave, River." He threw another lever on the console. "I'd rather not have an audience for the next little while if you don't mind."

"Actually I do," she countered. "You see, I just witnessed a woman from your past get kidnapped by a man you seem to know." She pursed her lips and slouched to one side. "And one you don't seem to like too much."

The Doctor sniffed. His expression fell into petulant grimace. He looked away from her to stare toward the console. "She wasn't being kidnapped. She went with him willingly – like she did before and always will."

River Song shook her head, letting her blonde curls dance around her shoulders. "There wasn't anything _willing_ about that, Sweetie. That girl was terrified…"

He lifted his chin at that. "And if I do recall, _Dear_ , she was also quite frightened of you, too." A smile touched at the very edge of his lips. "Would you care to explain how you know Rose Tyler and why she's completely terrified of you?"

River wore a smile as she lifted her hand to look at her nails. "I think you'll find, Doctor, that there are a lot of people who are scared of me." She flicked at her nails and waggled her brows as she lifted her eyes to him. "I have a bit of a reputation across the universe, you know."

"A fact I am aware, and most certainly don't approve of."

"I'm certainly not looking for your approval," she countered coyly. "Now. As to the name Rose Tyler?" Her brows dropped into a frown. "I can't say I've ever heard the name during my travels, but people do tend to go by pseudonyms when they're being evasive, so you never know. Perhaps she and I have crossed paths."

"I would hope not," he breathed, irritated. "The missus and the Ex," he muttered under his breath. "The Universe wouldn't survive it."

River Song frowned finding herself unable to hear his muttered words. "What was that?"

He shook his head and inhaled a deep voice. "It was nothing complimentary, nor conducive to the discussion."

"Tell me who they are, Doctor," River asked him in a voice that suggested that she was switching tactics to ge the information she wanted. "And how can we help?"

They are both part of my _past_ ," he muttered quickly. His voice held slight frustration and perhaps reigned fury. "Which means it's my problem to deal with and doesn't concern you."

"But they're here _now_ ," she corrected sharply. "And they've upset _you_ , which very much makes it my business. So you, dear husband, had better start talking or I'll get the TARDIS to spell it out to us."

Amy's voice sang in from behind the Doctor. "Rose Tyler. Human, early Twenty-first century from London, Earth. Companion of the Doctor in his Ninth and Tenth incarnations…"

River Song immediately snaked herself around the Doctor to look at the monitor that Amy was reading from. "She was with him through a regeneration?" She looked toward the Doctor's back with a lifted brow. "Not that I imagine she was the first of your companions to witness it…"

"She wasn't," he answered slowly as he turned around. "Nor was she the first one to be directly responsible for a regeneration." He leaned a hand on the console's edge. He smiled slightly. "Actually, if I am to be purely technical I can cite her indirect responsibility on my aborted regeneration."

River Song frowned. "I didn't know that you could _abort_ a regeneration."

His face screwed up in self-loathing. "Conditions need to be optimal and a bio-matching receptacle available in order to do so, of course. But. Yes. It's entirely possible to abort if one is vain enough to want to keep his current face."

"And you were being vain?" she queried with a frown.

"Don't pretend to be surprised by that, River," he shot back . "You know as well as most of the universe that the Doctor is rather fond of himself… Well… Of the incarnation he is currently in. We don't tend to like each other when we're faced with the unfortunate circumstance of being in each other's presence."

"At that moment," River clarified with a sigh.

"I was hopelessly in love," he said in rapid english, quite possibly in the hope that it was a comment that could be ignored.

Apparently not.

"Excuse me," she breathed in shock. "What? You were _what_?"

"I was hopelessly, shamelessly, desperately in love," he clarified. "Rose and I were. We were…" He dropped his head. "We were in love. Quite obviously so. But before we could explore …" He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "We ran out of time. There was a tear between the walls of dimensions. Cybermen, Daleks, death destruction…"

River Song hitched in her breath. "Oh Doctor," she breathed sympathetically. "You lost her?"

He nodded. "By the end of the battle, we found ourselves separated on opposite sides of a dimensional wall. The cracks were sealed and there was no way for me to get back to her."

Amy's voice was soft and reassuring. "There must be a way now, if she's back, Doctor."

He nodded.

River flicked a look to Amy then shifted her gaze back to Amy. "And what about this boyfriend of hers?"

"Yes," the Doctor answered with a nod. "She's wearing a wedding ring. He's her husband."

"Okay," Amy breathed out with a slow nod of her head. "So she's moved on, then?"

River Song blinked a slow close of her eyes. She held them closed for a long second and slowly opened them again. "And him, Doctor. Her husband. Who is he?"

"Me," he answered almost inaudibly.

"Why did I think you were going to say that?" River said sadly. "So she was more than your companion. She was your wife."

The Doctor smiled at that and released a breath through his nose. He inhaled just as sharply as he exhaled and shook his head. "Yes. And no. She's married to the Meta-Crisis version of my Tenth incarnation." Before any of his companions could ask the obvious, he inhaled another deep breath and let his words fly quickly from his mouth. "My aborted regeneration resulted in him. My bio-matching receptacle was my severed hand. Long story, lost it in a sword fight. But that man grew from my hand when the situation was dire enough to need a second me to help out."

He walked to the monitor and looked down at the keyboard as he entered in an array of touch commands. He lifted his eyes as the image of the meta crisis flicked up onto the screen. "Half Human/Half Time Lord." His eyes shifted to River Song. "Same as you are – to some degree I expect. An anomaly in time and space. Unique. Never been another one like him." He smirked. "Well. Until _you_ I suppose."

"How'd she end up with _him_ , then?" Amy asked with a frown. "And not you?"

"I gave him to her," he answered with a shrug. "I sent her back home to her family across the other side of the dimensional wall with a direct copy of myself to grow old and be happy with. I gave my other self the life I'd never be able to give her and then moved on." He sighed. "Moved along and moved on. New life, new body, new friends, new everything, really."

River's eyes twitched. "It doesn't sound like you gave her much of a choice in the matter, does it?" She straightened up and looked along his shoulder to his ear. "Did you?"

"It was for the best," he replied without looking at her. "He could give her what I couldn't. Marriage, stability, love, a house, children." He exhaled a breath. "Together they'd grow old. By Rassilon, I figured the two of them would die in each other's arms in their sleep when they turned 100."

River Song frowned tightly. "Obviously that's not going to be the case."

The Doctor agreed with a nod of his head. "Judging by what we saw today. No. Quite possibly not." He frowned. "Although I can't understand why not. When I left them they were doing that…" he flicked a hand toward Amy. "That kissing thing that you and Rory do … sometimes. I thought they'd be happy together."

River Song shook her head. "I suppose the honeymoon period wore off – and pretty quickly I might add," she said with a sigh as she looked over the image given to her by the TARDIS of Rose and Tentoo on the beach. "They can't be any more than a year or two older than this picture."

The Doctor screwed up his face. "Slight greying at his temple and sideburn. He's trying to colour it out, but roots are roots. They are persistent. I'd put him at about fifteen to twenty years older."

River Song hummed. "And Rose?"

"I may as well have said goodbye yesterday," he admitted sadly. His eyes then widened and his head shot upward. "No. No that's not right. It can't be." He shoved through both Amy and River and rapidly moved his fingers across the keyboard. "She should be much, much older than that. She should have lines and creases and the faults in the figure that age affords her." He shook his head as he read through the new information given by the TARDIS. "But she was perfect. As perfect as the day I left her. Probably moreso, in fact. Lovely, simply lovely, but not anywhere near her fourties as _his_ age suggests she should be."

River tucked her hair behind her ear and leaned down beside him to watch as he worked through the information. "Do you think something happened to her and he went back in time…?"

He shook his head. "He has no way of moving through time to do that," he admitted. "When I left them on the beach – I left the both of them with nothing from this universe. He has no ability at all to travel through time and space."

River Song hummed her displeasure. "How very kind of you to have just deserted them like that."

"He still got the best end of the deal," the Doctor admitted softly. "He got _her_. She got the perfect version of me to have and to hold for the rest of their short human lives."

River Swallowed hard. "You still love her, don't you?"

"I've moved on," he answered flatly.

"I'm really not sure that you have."

"We both have." The Doctor stepped back and folded his arms across his chest as he waited for the final data download and analysis from the TARDIS. "She married _him._ I moved on. Everyone's happy."

"Yes. That's obvious, isn't it?"

The Doctor leaned forward to read through the new information. "If there's one thing that I can't really let myself fall into," he murmured with obvious distain. "Is _domestics_. I don't have the time, nor the inclination for it."

River Song husked her voice into his ear. "Just keep trying to convince yourself of that, will you? We both know it's a lie."

"By Rassilon no," the Doctor breathed, obviously not listening to a word River was saying into his hear. He abruptly straightened and covered his mouth with his hand as he shook his head and backed away a step from the console's edge. "This can't be right. It can't be."

River Song looked to the monitor with an expression of confusion. "What's she saying, Sweetie?"

The Doctor rushed back to the monitor and let his hand fly frantically across the keyboard once again. "No," he demanded to the computer. "Check again. Double and triple check that information, because what you're saying is impossible, absolutely impossible."

River Song's brows twitched as she tried to make sense of the Gallifreyan text scrolling rapidly along the screen in front of her. "Vale," she said softly. "Vale-Yard? What, or who, is Vale-Yard?"

"It's pronounced Val-e-yard," the Doctor corrected with horror draining the colour in his face. He dropped his head and let it hang between his shoulders. "Omega, please tell me that I didn't create the Valeyard and just left her there with him. Please."

"Who is the Valeyard, Doctor?"

The Doctor didn't lift his head. "He's me," he admitted ruefully. "Created in the midst of blood, fire and battle. He represents the very worst of me. He has the memories of ten men – and carries the most vicious and evil traits of each and every one of them. Anything good inside me, he doesn't have."

Her breath drew in deep and hard. "Doctor…"

"He's an evil man," the Doctor continued. "And I just left her there with him." He lifted his head and looked blindly ahead of him. "I told her to fix him, to make him better." He closed his eyes. "But there is no making the Valeyard better." He swallowed a lump. "And I've got no way of getting to her. I've got no way of stopping him from hurting her – or destroying the universe I locked them in."

He twisted his head to look remorsefully toward River Song. "Oh, River. What have I done?"


	4. Examination

A/N: I'm really not sure how this chapter is going to be received - and quite frankly that worries me.

I'm stepping a wide stride out of my own comfort zone here and going dark with themes I'm not totally used to using. This chapter mentions the loss of a child and briefly touches on the grief of a father in mourning. I've tried to give some insight into the change from bouncy puppy to deranged psycho and the possible influences that's brought that about.

Gawd ... I hope this reads okay. Please let me know if you believe that I need to change the rating at all.

I am deleting chapter two (the non-chapter) from this story. This isn't because I don't like the comments - for the most part I do. I am deleting it because I believe that my point was made and it's not actually part of my story... I apologise if you are offended that your comments will be lost as a result of deleting this chapter.

~~oooOOOooo~~

Back on Pete's World…

It didn't matter which planet she was on or what parallel world she lived in, to Rose Tyler all doctor's offices looked the same. White walls, clinical smells and walls filled with filing cabinets that held a rainbow array of tagged files belonging to patients. Medical receptionists differed far less than the offices themselves. Deliberately attired in scrubs or a lab coat as though ready to be called to arms in the nearest clinical emergency, each one she had ever encountered had an attitude of superiority and distain for anyone approaching their desk. It was as though it was a very specific skill required of all front desk personnel in the medical field: be as rude and as arrogant as possible with airs and graces suggesting several years of university studies and published papers…

…when in reality the only diploma that might hang on their wall was the one received at their high school graduation.

Doctor Song's receptionist was no exception to this rule. She was a slight girl with brunette curls that were tucked carefully into an elaborate up-do that was more appropriate for a school prom than a doctor's office. Her makeup was thickly applied, artfully contouring her cheeks and nose, finished with false eye-lashes and dark smoky eye makeup. The girl never smiled, leading Rose to believe that if she did dare to shift the corners of her crimson lips into a smile that the mask of makeup might just fracture and fall off her face.

Although the woman had claimed to be no older than about 26 years of age, she really did look as though her age was well above that number. The husk and shudder in her voice when she spoke only added to that belief. Across the phone lines, one could be forgiven for thinking that the girl was well into her forties.

… Perhaps she really was?

Rose narrowed her eyes to better analyze the cadence of the woman across the other side of the reception desk. She stared at the wiry texture of her hair, and the stoic expression on her face as she focused on the monitor in front of her. Rose found her analysis so thorough, that she challenged herself to go home and paint this girl's image from memory.

After a long moment of being scrutinized the woman lifted her eyes over the top of the monitor to look at her. "Doctor Song will be with you shortly, Mrs. Smith."

 _Mrs. Smith_. Mrs. _John_ Smith.

Rose hadn't been referred to by that name outside of these office walls in nearly five years. Not since the accident that took the life of her son and nearly took her loving husband with it. That was roughly around the same time that the man who was once a fun-loving excitable bouncy puppy started his journey to becoming a cold, calculating, and oftentimes deranged man…

…And the exact moment that Doctor Song had entered their lives.

Rose had questioned the circumstances that led to Doctor Song becoming a regular in their lives more than once. Although the accident had occurred on a stretch of country road that had little to no traffic on it on a regular day, Doctor Song had been on the accident scene within seconds claiming herself as a _witness_ to the accident. She'd pulled a medical bag from the back of her own vehicle and despite John and Rose's insistence that any attention be given to their son, Doctor Song had only showed attentiveness to John. She had insisted that he be transferred to the hospital that she was working out of. Even though it was a twenty-minute ambulance trip further than the closest two trauma centres, the paramedics took him there. She made sure to accompany him in the back of the ambulance as it sped away from the scene with sirens blaring and lights flashing.

Rose and their son had been transferred to the closer trauma centre for immediate critical care, but their teenaged child didn't make it. Young Jamie succumbed to his injuries on the way to the hospital. He died without either parent at his side, inside a noisy ambulance with paramedics frantically pounding at his chest and filling his battered body with the electrical charges of a defibrillator.

Rose was told his fate as she battled against the emergency room doctor who was trying to reset her broken leg. It was hours later that she was given her opportunity to say goodbye to her child in a cold morgue laboratory. She did it alone, without her devoted husband at her side to help her through it. On what was the absolute worst day of her entire existence, she found herself separated from the man she loved. Separated and without any word as to his fate.

…For eight days she believed that she'd lost him, too. On that eighth day he finally strolled a seemingly nonchalant stride into the hospital with Doctor Song as his side and nary a mark on him to show the physical trauma that they'd been through. He walked into her hospital room as though he hadn't been gone for more than a week to leave her to grieve alone. He walked in, gave her a smile and said only: "Hello" to her. Hello. Nothing more. No explanations. Just that simple little five-letter greeting that he'd give to a complete stranger as he passed by.

Rose immediately fell apart, and his cool façade fell. Despite a click of disapproval from _his_ Doctor, John collapsed onto the mattress beside Rose and dissolved into great gulping sobs of apology and sorrow. Although he held her tight and promised through his tears that they'd get through it together, she knew things had changed between them. How could they not? Their child had died alone. She resented his absence in her time of crisis, and he seemed to harbour more than a little resentment of his own.

Of course they'd just lost a child. Resentment and assignment of blame was to be expected.

Over the course of the following months, John changed. Rose fully expected that there'd be a period of time that he may revert to his Time Lord ways and withdraw into himself. She was prepared for that possibility and readied herself to help him through the grief as best she could. She could swallow her own anguish if it meant she could help him through his. She _would_ swallow it down and be his rock.

The grief at losing his child was relentless, however, and it wasn't long before the man who once Lorded over Time herself began to wield the same power at home. After a particularly long visitation with Doctor Song, John returned home and efficiently deposed their entire home of any and all evidence of the existence of James Irving Smith. Mention of the lad's name was prohibited. He would no longer even acknowledge that the gifted and brilliant teenager even existed.

…And then, while he was at it, John Smith eliminated John Smith. Someone else entirely was born on that day. " _The Valeyard"_ he called himself, or "Vale" if your name was Rose Smith (nee Tyler) or Dr. River Song.

What kind of name that was Rose Tyler was loathe to ask. She did reach into the English translation of the word to try and suss it out for herself, but only came up with "Valley."

A yard of valleys.

She could quirk a slight smile at that image. The meaning of it was lost on her, however, and as it was being used as a title in the manner that Time Lords seemed to do, she could only assume that it had a different meaning on Gallifrey than it did on Earth.

Rose blew a breath through pursed lips as she leaned her elbow up on the back of the chair and leaned her temple against her fist.

She wished that she understood it completely so that she could adjust herself enough to align with this new _him_. She wished that she understood the need for the change. Grief was a powerful motivator – she understood that to some degree – but change on the level her husband had undergone …. That made no sense at all to her… the new him made no sense to her at all. He was wrong. So very, very wrong.

"Rose. Sorry to have kept you waiting," River's voice crooned in a professional manner. "If you'll come with me, I can give you a quick examination to see if you've experienced any ill-effects from your travel."

Rose shook herself at Doctor Song's voice. She cleared her throat of a lump and rubbed sweated palms along the thighs of her trousers. "Right. Yeah. S'all good."

River waited a moment for Rose to shift. When she didn't immediately move to rise from the seat, she shook her head and exhaled a sigh. "Today would be nice. I'm a very busy woman and don't like to diddle-daddle."

Rose blinked her eyes and looked upward with confusion. At the impatient look in River's eye, Rose quickly nodded her head and uttered quiet apologies as she rose up out of the seat.

"If you're _that_ busy, Doctor Song," Rose ventured with a smile of pleading. "Then we can cancel this examination. I assure you that I'm perfectly fine. Nothing wrong with me. Fit as a fiddle."

"I'm doing this as a favour to your husband," River answered back with a slight song in her voice. She pressed her palm against the doorway that led to an examination room and allowed Rose to step in ahead of her. "And to you, of course."

"Always the afterthought," Rose murmured under her breath. She then lifted her head and smiled as she spoke. "This is truly unnecessary, Doctor Song."

"Vale means a great deal to me," River continued as she directed Rose to take a seat. She smiled toward an assistant seated at the other side of the room, and then looked back toward Rose. Her voice remained professionally friendly as she leaned to one side to pick up her blood pressure cuff. "He's a good friend. I'm very happy to take time out of my busy day to do a favour for him."

"Oh, I'm very sure," Rose countered coldly as she held out her arm and turned up her nose at the coldness of River's hand as she wrapped the cuff. "I'm sure he's called on you a fair deal for _favours_."

River kept her eyes on the bell of the stethoscope that she'd pressed into the crook of Rose's elbow and smiled. "Jessica," she called to her assistant. "Would you mind please giving Mrs. Smith and I a little privacy? I need to perform a full-body analysis and this precious flower is rather shy."

Jessica removed a back-rimmed pair of glassed from the bridge of her nose and nodded quickly. She pushed herself to a stand. "Of course, Doctor. Did you want me to ensure that the resonating imaging capsule is prepared for Mrs. Smith?"

Rose stilled in River's grasp and swallowed thickly. Her breath shortened and she breathed out a series of negative sounds

That made River smile. "That would be lovely, Jess. And please make sure to have some sedative available. We know how anxious Mrs. Smith gets inside that capsule."

Jessica gave a firm nod of her head. "Of course. I'll make sure that everything is ready for you. Would you like me to notify Mr. Smith to have him collect her this afternoon?"

"Unnecessary," River sang with a smile as she discarded the cuff and moved onto securing a nylon tourniquet around Rose's arm. "I've already made the necessary arrangements."

"Understood ma'am."

The click of the door let Rose know that the two women were now alone. Immediately she pitched herself backward from Doctor Song and released the tourniquet with the snap of the buckle. She didn't bother to remove it completely and let it simply hang as an oversized bracelet at her wrist.

"You are not putting me back in that machine."

"Oh, Sweetie," River answered with a condescending lilt in her voice. "Of course I am."

Rose tightened her lips into a thin line and shook her head. She hummed out her denial in a single breath through her nose.

River Song slumped and rolled her eyes in a truly long suffering manner. "How many times must you and I go through this, Sweetie? Every time you come in, you tell me that I'm not examining you under any circumstances, yet I always end up with you inside the capsule and your blood in a vial on my desk."

"Don't call me _Sweetie_."

"You really should just give in and let it happen," River continued without acknowledging Rose's demand. "It'll just make all of this go so much smoother – and far less painfully – if you just submit to the examination."

"I didn't realise that there was a _less painful_ option," Rose seethed through her teeth. "You've been holding out on me."

River Song hummed lightly. "Okay. I might have exaggerated a little when I suggested that I could make the procedures less invasive and therefore less painful."

"Does John know…?"

"Vale," she interrupted with a harsh correction, "trusts me completely."

"That didn't answer my question."

River Song dug her heels into the ground and scraped her chair against the floor to push herself away from Rose. She huffed as she pressed her hands into her knees to balance herself as she stood. "You're here at _his_ demand," she answered rather coolly.

Rose jumped up quickly to a stand. Her fists curled at her sides. "Does. My husband. Know what tests you're running on me?" She growled, punctuating where she thought would have the most impact. "Because I'm fairly certain that if he knew…"

"Then he'd what?" River snapped in reply. "He knows these tests are necessary for your own protection, and regardless of what you believe, that man's sole purpose in life is your protection, which in turn makes it mine. " Her voice softened just slightly. " You are as unique as he is, Sweetheart, and I'm the only one who…"

"Don't' call me that."

"Oh, I'll call you what I like, thank you," she snarled in reply. "You and Vale are two very unique individuals. You both have physiology that requires…" She frowned as she considered the best word to use and circled her finger in the air. " _Special_ examination methods in order to procure the most accurate data."

"Data that you no doubt _procure_ for your own _study_ ," Rose challenged.

"Actually," she countered with a sly smile. "I procure the data for your _husband's_ study."

Rose's smile fell. She tipped her head lightly to one side as River Song began a very slow and guarded pacing pattern in front of her. "What could he possibly _want_ from me?"

River Song hummed and smiled as she deliberately – and very obviously – raked her eyes up and down Rose's body. "I can't say that I haven't asked that question more than once." She laughed when Rose immediately and subconsciously moved to cover herself up. She smirked a fallacious grin. "Then again…."

Rose quietly fumed when River Song left it at that and walked toward the rear of the room. She knew that the woman was chomping at the bit to triumphantly announce that she was sharing a bed – or table top – with her husband. There was far too much suggestion woven into any conversation between them for Rose to actually disbelieve it. And while she had not to this point brought that hidden topic to the forefront, there was an unspoken understanding between the women that the affair wasn't a secret. If it was because of respect, denial, or just a lack of desire to call in an all-out catfight, Rose would never admit for sure. She just knew that she didn't want to bring it up at all.

At least not to River Song.

Rose lowered her head and spoke softly. "What does he need from me, then?"

"You should ask your husband,' River answered with a shrug. "Patient/Doctor confidentiality and all that. I'm sure you understand."

Rose had to laugh at that. "Yet you share the contents of _my_ file with him."

"Some of it," she answered along a high noted sigh. "The good stuff anyway – which there isn't a great deal of. Generally speaking your file is unremarkable."

"I sense a _but_ in there."

River Song smirked and lowered her head to look at the ground. "Oh, Sweetie. The _but_ that exists in your file." She lifted her head to look through the curls of her fringe at her. "The _but_ that makes you so very unique to this planet, to the galaxy, and even the Universe herself."

Rose shoved her hand at the wall to shove herself into a walk of annoyance. "Yes. Yes. I produce and secrete the Lindos hormone when I am injured or unwell. John's talked to me about this – it's a side effect of the radiation I was exposed to early on in our relationship…"

"When you used to travel by TARDIS," she clarified coolly.

"You know about that?"

River Song exhaled a long breath through her nose that unsettled the front of her lab coat and had her smoothing it over with her hand. "Vale's told me a great many things, Sweetie. I believe there may be a very good chance that I know things about him that even you don't know."

"We've been married for thirty years," Rose countered.

"Which means very little," River countered with a sigh. "Men are instinctually secretive. It doesn't matter how much they love and vow to withhold nothing, they always will." She winked. "It takes a gifted woman to get them in the right circumstance to find out a great deal about the secrets that they keep."

And there it was again.

Rose vowed silently to herself that she wouldn't comment on that.

"So if you know about the TARDIS, then you also know that the two of us were consistently exposed to Artron radiation. Benign for the most part – but in _special_ circumstances where that exposure is exponentially increased." She licked at her lip. "Well. It'll take some time for my system to work itself free of it."

River Song hummed.

Rose folded her arms across her chest. "Provided my immune system doesn't have to continually trigger production of it of course. Which you could help with by not performing these unnecessary _examinations_ of yours."

River Song didn't comment, choosing to allow Rose to finish her thoughts before giving any of her own. She waved her hand in a request for her to continue.

"I'm never going to regenerate," Rose continued. "No matter how hard you push me. When I die, I die."

"That's truly not my intention," River Song clarified. "Collecting small samples is all I need for now."

"To what end?"

River blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Well. Why?"

River remained silent for a moment as she digested the question. She let the silence hang for a fair while before she stepped forward and walked toward the doorway. "Because that's what Vale needs."

"What?"

River shook her head. "We should really get this done," she ordered sharply. "Your husband apparently has plans for the two of you this evening, and we should make sure you're in the right condition to enjoy those plans." She couldn't shield the disgust from her tone.

"Then, just send me home," Rose ventured with a slight shake in her voice. "We can tell him that the exam went well and that I'm fit as a fiddle. No worries at all."

River Song found herself smiling at that. She pulled open the door to the examination room and gestured toward the hallway with a twist of her wrist. She waited until Rose had passed at her side to whisper a slight admonishment against her ear. "You would _lie_ to your beloved husband, Sweetie?"

Rose shuddered at the hiss of hot breath against the back of her neck, but did her best not to let it show. "Why not," she answered softly – more to herself than to River. "He lies to me."

"Omission is not a lie," River chuckled back.

"Is as good as," Rose said with a thick swallow. "At least that's what he used to say to Jamie."

"Then to clarify: I won't lie to him," she whispered against her ear. "I told him I would examine you, and examine you I will."

Rose was led through the door that led to the imaging capsule and found her legs weaken underneath her. She hand to hold her hand against the wall to maintain her stand. "S-So you're telling me." She swallowed. "John knows about this?"

"He really doesn't ask," River answered with a cheeky smile. "And I certainly haven't told him." She latched the door to the capsule room behind her and walked back to press her rump lightly against the door. "Are you thinking of telling him?"

Rose blinked at the question. She _could_ mention it to him. She _could_ ask him why he allowed this torture to take place. She could ask him to put a stop to it…

Oh, but she had this mental discussion with herself every single time she ended up in this damn room. Every single time she vowed that the moment she was safely away from the clinic that she would break down and tell him everything and plead for his help. But for some unfathomable reason that she simply couldn't' comprehend, she found herself physically unable to do so. The words and the pleas were on her lips and in her mind, but she couldn't sound out the words that would call him to arms on her behalf. "Please help me" ended up leaving her lips as a desperate pledge of love for him, and any attempt to show him any of the surface injuries would instead have her pushing him toward the closest available surface to allow him to viciously make love with her with enough aggression for her to pass out when they were done.

She wouldn't wake until the following morning, but he'd always be there in bed with her when she did. He'd be wrapped around her with all the possessiveness of a boa constrictor coiling around its prey, fast asleep and puffing warm breaths against the nape of her neck. She'd never recall just how she made it into their bed, but he'd certainly offer her a cheeky reminder upon waking. And always in that short, but glorious moment where they indulged in some sleepy morning delight, Rose had her playful, loving, attentive husband back in her arms … there was no way that she was going to waste that precious moment talking about an examination with Doctor Song.

She imagined this time would be no different to every other time – although she vowed that she'd try. Whatever force was stopping her from fighting against it now or calling for her husband to help her wouldn't be able to hold her back forever. She'd work it out and find a way. Unfortunately her chance at getting advice and maybe assistance from the other side was now impossible…

…or was it?

Impossible wasn't exactly a word that sat well inside the vocabulary of Rose Tyler. She had assumed that the device she'd taken from John's laboratory had been the only model he'd made. But it really wasn't, was it? He crossed over the void to chase after her when she'd left him. If he was able to cross over in chase, then there was a second prototype.

Rose felt a stinging pain against the side of her neck, and all of her plans to search for the second device flew from her mind. She shook her head to clear it of the sudden cotton ball sensation that seemed to fill her mind and stumbled just slightly off to the side.

"Wha?"

"Mild sedative," River sang with a smile in her voice. "Our little chat made us a little short of time. I figured it would be better that I forwent all of our usual protocols of arguing and fighting and trying to get you to be more pliable to our requirements and just sedated you now."

Rose stumbled against the wall and then dropped onto a knee. She pressed her hand into the wall and looked up at River with hurt in her gaze. "Well that's no fun at all, is it?"

"For you perhaps not," she answered with a smile. "For me … well." River Song looked up toward a monitor as a face of a perfectly coiffed woman with harsh features and a silver patch over her right eye appeared on screen.

"I've heard that you have the subject prepped for a new round of genetic modification therapy. I trust we don't have another attempted incursion by her husband."

River Song's eye twitched as she recalled a slip in the conditioning that had allowed John Smith enough clarity to come to the aid of his _precious_ wife early in their treatment schedule. It had almost resulted in the entire project being immediately shut down and an order of execution being brought down upon her. She wasn't going to let that happen again.

"I wouldn't worry about that possibility," she answered smoothly. "He's not going to be a problem. He is blinded enough by lust that he trusts me quite possibly more than he does her." She grinned. "Her little betrayal today has only heightened that trust in me."

"That's good to hear. And our subject?"

River looked down to the semi-conscious woman that lolled her heavy head on a weakening neck. "She's much less of a problem right now."


	5. Hacking

A/N: I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again. I am not a tech-minded person. I'm also not a medical-type-person. That said, what follows is not in any way accurate and I beg of you not to go into this thinking I am clever enough to have gotten it right. I found words I liked, I even made some up, I put them in here.

This chapter went way longer than I intended and so I had to break it up. I am not quite sure just how I feel about this particular chapter... We wrestled for quite a while as to just how we were going to pull this off. I went back and changed so many things because I found myself so undecided that I am worried it might be a little jumpy to the reader. My initial read-though said no, that it was fine ... but I also know what I was trying to say, so I can quite easily bypass the errors. If you note them ... point them out. I am absolutely not opposed in any way to rewriting this particular chapter ...

Not. At. all.

I do hope you enjoy... My apology if you don't... :)

Oh, and the product named in the early paragraphs of this fic - Poo-Pourri - is a product that I strongly recommend any one who resides with any male of any age immediately purchase and give pride of place in the washroom. It is a brilliant product that negates the need for a courtesy flush (and show me a man that actually believes in that practice) and leaves any bathroom smelling wonderful no matter what level of ickiness has been dropped in there. I swear by it ... I really do...

GK

~~oooOOOooo~~

Still at Pete's World…..

Rose Tyler stirred into wakefulness with a heaviness on her chest that made it somewhat difficult to draw in a deep breath. She felt a constriction across her belly and thighs and for the briefest of moments wondered if she was suffering from an unfortunate sleep paralysis event.

To this point she'd never actually experienced one of those events first-hand, but she'd read about them and watched accounts being retold on the telly. All the tales she'd heard and read about had intimated that a sleep paralysis event was an absolutely terrifying phenomenon. Terrified, however, she wasn't. Restricted and unable to move, yes. Scared out of her mind? No.

She opened her mouth wide to draw in a breath as deep as possible and practically choked. Her inhale had drawn in a mouthful of chestnut-dyed hair that belonged to a head that was at that moment pillowed heavily on her chest. Ahh. Yes. Aspirated hair. Well that quickly turned fear into realization. Obviously what was restricting her movements right now was the part-Time Lord that had cocooned himself around her as she slept, and not the horrors of sleep paralysis.

She chuckled lightly to herself and wriggled slightly to try to force him into shifting his head off the centre of her chest. "C'mon John," she whispered in urging. "Move a bit, yeah? I need to breathe."

He let out a rather indignant snort of protest, snuffled his nose against her right breast and tightened his hold on her. "Mmmphf-comfy-mmmphff."

She stroked at his hair and let out a sigh as she looked up toward the darkened ceiling above them. "You might be, Love, but I'm not."

A long and wet exhale through his lips was his only response.

Rose maintained the tender movement of her fingers through his hair and stared at the darkness overhead with a strength of focus that she absolutely should not have been capable of at this time of the night. It would probably have been a good idea for her to reach down inside herself to attempt to determine just how it was that she ended up in bed and not in front of a fireplace, naked and writhing on a sheep-skin rug with her husband. Probably a good idea, but really not really worth it. She was usually unable to recall much after her appointments with Doctor Song, and the more she tried, the more she just became frustrated with it. It was better to focus on the fact that she was very safely ensconced in the arms of her husband rather than how she got there.

..Actually right now the consideration might be just how to wriggle herself free of him so that she could quietly use the toilet and potter around a bit without waking him.

Her bladder agreed with her.

She wriggled again to test the waters for the depth of John's sleep and was immediately chided within a snorted snuffle and a leg that curled even tighter around her own.

Right. So. Moving was off the table for now. He wasn't about to let her sneak out of bed no matter how much her bladder protested it. She let out a sigh and looked back up to the ceiling in the hope that counting backwards from 100 might help her get back to sleep. What she saw up there caught her breath in her throat and threw any and all numerical figures out of her head and throughout all time and space.

It was an optical illusion – she understood that well enough – but that didn't make the swirling black mass above their bed any less frightening to look at. She might've described it as rolling storm clouds of absolute doom and gloom, but the shadows above her seemed more to swirl and twist than roll and shift.

With the manner in which it swirled and pulsed above her, Rose found no accurate descriptives to truly describe it – if she was in any way inclined to do so that is. It wasn't a roll of clouds. It didn't ripple like water. There was no dissipating movement that could describe it as thick smoke. She wouldn't even equate the movement to that of a diffusing bath bomb in warm bath water. It couldn't be one, and it couldn't even be a combination of each of those effects. It was more along the lines of nothingness engulfing the nothingness that surrounded it.

A black hole?

No.

If she were to consider the movement within the void between dimensional walls this would probably be it. The eyes of the Reaper himself, calling nothing into nothing. Mind games and tricks of a weary eye. Yes. Void stuff. Void stuff leaking into her bedroom to remind her of the insanity of all the jumps she had ever made.

Her breath drew in hard.

Or a reminder that there were walls that still needed to be crossed…

The very tip of her plump and pink tongue nestled into the corner of her mouth a moment as she let that thought entertain her brain for a moment. Before she had been dosed with sedative, she had decided that her quest for salvation across dimensional walls was not over. John had a second device, which meant he also had detailed records and designs saved somewhere. Those designs and specs were very likely hidden on a protected folder on his cloud network. That made things easy. She could try to access that information from her tablet or laptop.

Perhaps at the same time she could look into what other _areas_ of study he'd been investigating. Doctor Song had stated quite clearly that he was studying _her_. Maybe she could look at his research notes and glean something from that, too?

She blinked up into the shifting black mass above her face and smiled toward it in thanks. She then looked down at her chest and pursed her lips in contemplation. Moving. Waking him. Finding explanation. How and what could she do just that.

Her bladder raised its hand and grunted loudly for attention like the child in the back of the class desperately seeking attention from a teacher. Rose nodded to herself and let herself move without care as to whether or not the man above her woke up.

"Gotto go," she murmured with a grunt as she heard the distinct sleepy sounds of his rousing. "Move, John."

He moaned and shook his head as he tightened his grip around her. "No."

"Do you want me to pee in the bed?"

"But you're so warm," he mumbled almost coherently against her sternum. "I'll take the blame for a complete bladder release and then admit to a fetish of that nature if it'll make you feel better about it."

"It really doesn't," she countered with a groan. She wriggled upward as best she could and pushed at his tightening arms with her hands in search of freedom. "Now get off me."

He lifted himself enough to give her room to shift out from underneath him, and then flopped back down onto his belly. His arms thrust upward to snare a pillow and he hauled it down to lay his cheek deep into it. "Don't be long," he warned with faux darkness and a look through the only eye that was capable of looking at her past the fluff of the pillow. "Need m'teddy bear."

Rose shook her head and rolled her eyes as she picked up her silken kimono robe from the floor and slipped it onto her shoulders. "I'm very sure you'll be fine." She chuckled at him muttering in disagreement and walked past the ensuite toward the bedroom door. "Back shortly."

"Where you going?" he asked curiously with less of a muffle in his voice that told Rose he had picked his head up off the pillow. "Ensuite is behind you."

She spun quickly on her heel and offered him the most embarrassed expression she could muster. "Uhm. I was thinking of using the toilet downstairs." She thumbed to the doorway. "I've got a bit of a belly ache and I might be a while."

He chuckled, shook his head and then flopped onto his back. His head buried deep into the pillow, but he kept his eyes on her. "You know," he began with a teasing smile. "The ensuite is capable of accepting waste at level two."

Rose's brows tightened into a grimace of discomfort. "Yeah. Might do. But now that you know the intention is to do _that_ , I can't very well do that with you only a wall away with your superior olfactory and aural senses picking up each and every…" She moaned and dropped her head into her hand. "Oh God."

"If you subscribe to religion, Rose, then you could absolutely blame him for designing a waste removal system that…"

"Don't!" she cried out in horror. "Just don't. I really don't want to talk about it, yeah?"

"Just use the Poo-Pourri if you're so embarrassed by it," he muttered.

"Actually, I'll just use the lower bathroom, thank you," she said with a groan. She flicked her hair over her shoulder and turned away from him to leave the room. "And besides. We're out. You poured the entire bottle of it into the bowl last week, remember? Chilli-gate?"

"Right," he drawled along a breath. "The pre-emptive post-chilli bowl pour." He stretched his lanky form on the mattress and let out a sound of pleasure at the pull on his muscles. "Worth it, though. Totally worked." He then rolled onto his side and propped his head up on his hand. "Go do what you need to do. I'll be waiting for you."

She paused at the doorway and slowly turned her head to look back over her shoulder at him. "Go back to sleep, Love. I'll try not to wake you when I come back to bed."

"I can't sleep without you." He sniffed, hummed and then nodded as his eyes drifted shut. "But I'll try my best. Love you, Rose."

She smiled and returned the sentiment using the name given to him on Gallifrey and quickly disappeared into the hallway before he could react in his usual manner. The moan of utter desire that ghosted along the corridor after her made her chuckle. Her chuckle quickly fell to an expression of seriousness as she ran her fingers along the wall and curled the around the bannister of the stairs to look back down the corridor toward the bedroom. She paused there for a long moment in wait for him to emerge. After inhaling and then exhaling three very long and deep breaths, she finally let herself pad quietly and quickly down the stairs. She knew that it would only be a matter of time until he got impatient and started to look for her, so she moved into a light jog at the bottom of the stairs. She snatched her tablet from the arm of the couch and ran straight into the bathroom. She spun on the ball of her foot rather unnecessarily to close the bathroom door behind her. She clicked the lock in place with flourish and moved to the toilet without even switching on the light.

With one hand Rose managed to lift the toilet seat, drop her knickers, and settle herself atop the padded toilet seat that was – thankfully – not cold. As her bladder cheered triumphantly and voided itself, Rose slouched forward and tapped through the security code on her tablet.

It took her at least five minutes before she could access the necessary cloud drives to begin her search of John's files. She knew full well that he had security protocols in place on any of his files that would immediately notify him via text if any of them were accessed. She had to make sure that she tip-toed herself past each and every cyber-booby-trap he had in place. And, oh, if he wasn't brilliant at implementing anti-hacker software and patches…

…Fortunately she was a much better hacker than he was an anti-hacker. Twenty years of Torchwood training and service, and several degrees in computer engineering certainly gave her the upper hand. It didn't mean she could become blasé about nosing about and thinking she'd completely one-upped him. He was still the Doctor, after all…

…Regardless of what he called himself now.

Ten minutes into her search, however, there didn't seems to be anything particularly interesting that pertained to the dimensional beacon. There were plenty of files that appeared to contain a myriad of alien equations that could create several different pieces of technology that could upgrade a toaster or a car, maybe. There were designs and equations that related back to their failed attempts to grow their TARDIS coral within their own lifetime.

…Oh that was a heartbreaker…

But aside from his typical experimentations and random pages of alien equations, she couldn't find anything. Nothing. Nada.

She blew out a long breath of defeat through pursed lips and dropped her chin into her hand. As her elbow settled onto her knee, she tapped the very top of her fingernail against the tempered glass screen of her tablet.

Where could she possibly head from here? What avenue should she step into this time?

The tapping of her fingernail turned into a tap of her fingertip and within a moment, a bleep sounded lightly from the tablet and a very interesting hidden file appeared on her screen. Her eyes widened and she lightly called "tag. Found you" before letting her tongue settle in the corner of her mouth to take a sneaky peek at it.

Her brows slammed together hard in a tight furrow of absolute shock to find a folder named "Project Bad Wolf and Storm" that had creation and modification tags assigned to Doctor Song's ID attached to it. Her fingertip double tapped at the air above the icon at least seven times before she could actually bring herself to tap at it for real. She did it only after she drew in a horribly deep breath that threatened to rip her lungs apart and then exhaled it as violently as she could through her nose.

The file icon expanded to fill the screen with a listing of files, each of them created and modified by a single computer identification. And it wasn't John's. If the naming protocols of the files was what she believed it to be, then the files pertained to both John and herself.

She lifted her eyes to the thick black shadow over the top of her tablet. Slowly her eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness to show the silhouette of the bathroom sink, but that image quickly thickened to black when her eyes went back to the brightly lit tablet screen.

Her eyes scrolled along the file names and the modification dates. Her time was limited right now, and so she had to be selective of just which file she wanted to access. She chose a random file bearing the "Storm" designation.

 _Followup evaluation and management of psychiatric medication and alien hormone therapies_

 _Subject A._

 _Gender: Male._

 _Codename: Storm._

 _Species: Hybrid: Human/Gallifreyan – classified Biological Meta-Crisis_

 _The patient has been doing quite well since his last examination. Despite an increase in dosage of Cyclobarbital to allow greater absorption of Dehalcynaphnren into the patient's bloodstream, he is calm, relaxed with high energy levels well over acceptable limits for the level of barbiturate in his system His cognitive function is intact. There is no obsessions, compulsions or phobias noted._

 _Storm is very alert and responsive. His orientation is full for time, place and person. Mood is euthymic. Energy levels are very good. His concentration is firm, but is easily directed and controlled by suggestion._

 _I suggest experimental administering of simulated Lindos hormone via spinal tap to begin as soon as possible to prepare his immune system for the introduction of pure Lindos hormone._

~~ooooooo~~

Rose's brow furrowed tightly as she ignored the remaining paragraphs of that report. She had to admit to being just slightly confused … or quite baffled … or in actual fact quite rightly stymied as to why and how John would submit himself for treatment like this.

Pain medication, yes. He was taking quite a lot of that of late. Despite the apparent lack of injury when they were reunited after the accident, he had apparently suffered a quite painful injury that had lingering pain. It was definitely pain medication, though. Rose had researched the name of the drug he'd been taking as soon as she noticed his shifting moods and changing personality. It was the run of the mill – but highly addictive – medication that about ten percent of the population was taking on a regular basis.

To some degree she could understand the introduction of Lindos to his physiology. He lived his entire life prior to the Meta-Crisis with Lindos cursing through his mind and body whenever he suffered injury. Perhaps he was using it as a last resort to end the pain of an injury that simply wouldn't lie?

She tapped her fingernail against her teeth as she considered the psychotics. Why on Earth would he need to be mixing barbituates and psychotics?

Well … _Anti_ -Psychotic medication, perhaps. Oh, half the universe would probably agree to him taking that…

She couldn't even find it in her to chuckle to herself at that. She merely blinked her eyes against the darkness atop her tablet and swallowed thickly. With a shaking hand she tapped open a more recent entry.

~~ooooooo~~

 _Followup evaluation and management of psychiatric medication and alien hormone therapies_

 _Subject A._

 _Gender: Male._

 _Codename: Storm._

 _Species: Hybrid: Human/Gallifreyan – classified Biological Meta-Crisis_

 _The patient has exceeded all expectations since his last examination. The dosage of Cyclobarbital was levelled and Dehalcynaphnren levels tripled to counter the anxiety and tremoring experienced by the patient as pure Lindos hormone was regulated into the patient's bloodstream._

 _Storm's immune system and the hormone modification therapy has yielded surprising results. Cellular degeneration expected with subject's age (estimated to be nearing 70 relative to human aging – regardless of his actual degeneration being much more consistent with a 60-year old. Actual age has not been determined) has completely ceased and in a remarkable turn has begun to reverse. Three months after introduction of the hormone to subject's system, Storm's physiology appears to have regressed to degeneration expected from a fourty-year old subject. It is expected that this reversion may slow and stop once the immune system properly aligns with the new hormone and the changes level out. This effect would be consistent with the female subject who is the source of the Lindos. Cellular degeneration has completely ceased in that subject to keep her physiology consistent with a 25-30 year old human female. Actual age is estimated to be 55._

 _Despite the physiological changes, the subject remains calm, relaxed with high energy levels well over acceptable limits for the level of barbiturate that remains in his system His cognitive function is intact and improving exponentially in response to the degenerative reversal. Without factoring in conditioning training, there is no obsessions, compulsions or phobias noted._

 _Storm is very alert and responsive. His orientation is full for time, place and person. Mood without medication is euthymic. Energy levels are very good. His concentration is firm, but is easily directed and controlled by suggestion._

~~ooooooo~~

Rose nearly dropped the tablet. What in the name of Rassilon's ghost was this all about? Had John really submitted himself for experimentation like this? Did he truly miss being a regenerating Time Lord so intensely that he would allow medicinal manipulation and intervention like this to stay young and handsome?

It made absolutely no sense to her at all. She let her eyes fall back to the remainder of the report.

~~ooooooo~~

 _I suggest experimental oral administration of Hydromelithium Hydroxi. The introduction of Lindos to the subject's physiology has resulted in the reawakening and strengthening of his dormant telepathic receptors. This has interfered with the mental conditioning experiments performed in the initial test phase immediately following initial contact. It appears to have provided the subject with increasing episodes of clarity and awareness not conducive to the anticipated results of prolonged exposure to conditional experimentation. Regular administering of Hydromelithium Hydroxi will suppress the telepathic receptors and allow further and more intensive mental conditioning. It is expected to achieve total manipulation of subject though mental conditioning and medicinal intervention by the end of the calendar year. Control of this subject is paramount._

~~ooooooo~~

Rose looked at the date on top of the report and inhaled deep to note that the end of that particular calendar year was approximately fourteen months ago. If that report was accurate and the desired results met, then John … Rose shook her head unwilling to complete that thought. She sat back against the toilet's tank and let the tablet fall onto her knees. She lifted her eyes to the dark void against the wall that was the mirror over the vanity and willed her eyes to focus even though she wasn't truly looking at it. Her mind whirled with a myriad of questions that she wanted immediate answers to. Answers, of course, that she knew she wouldn't get, but they were burning questions none-the-less.

There was a compulsion within her right now to storm her bedroom, shove this tablet and it's hidden files into the face of her husband and demand that he anti-up with just what the hell he was up to to allow himself to be experimented on like this…

But was it something that he even allowed, though? Did he even know what was happening to him?

She hunched forward over her knees and kissed her lips against the top edge of the tablet to consider that question. No. That couldn't be right. He couldn't have known. If he knew about it, surely he would've stopped it.

These files, this incriminating folder, it was all on his cloud drive. Surely he had accessed and read it all by now? John – at least the John she knew – wouldn't sit idly by and do nothing. He wouldn't have files like this on his drive and not have memorized them all in their entirety. No, he was far too curious to ignore anything that might have some delicious scientific content. Unless….

Unless he didn't know they were there.

Rose pursed her lips and focused on the glow of the tablet screen reflecting off the stainless steel handles of the cabinet doors. These files had required some fancy finger work and artful navigation to track down. She dipped and ducked through several anti-hacking booby traps that John simply didn't have the technological flexibility to curl around.

She frowned and swiped her fingers on the screen to walk backward through her chosen pathways in order to determine exactly where she'd wandered. She had assumed that the pathways she had taken were the paths that led her toward John's drive. As she backed through the paths she had carefully taken, however, the cloud drive she'd accessed became clear.

…It wasn't John's drive. It wasn't even close to his drive.

She immediately tossed the tablet with both hands up onto the counter and shoved herself backward on the toilet seat in an attempt to back as far away from the tablet as possible.

She'd accessed not only the Scientific Federation Health Centre network drives, but the actual files of Doctor River Song herself. Oh. Oh dear. Holy-absolutely-illegal-activity, Rose Tyler! She'd be flagged. She would. IT didn't matter how careful she was in sneaking though their network, she could be flagged and her IP recorded without her even knowing it.

Alarms could be ringing through the hospital network right now!

She snatched her tablet back form the countertop and pulled it toward her with far more force than was necessary. With her knickers still around her ankles and still seated on the toilet, Rose Tyler scrambled to implement the worm virus that would obliterate any evidence of her presence in the system. The _Torchwood Special_ Mickey called it back when he'd written the program virus thirty years ago. A Data string over thirty years old and considered obsolete by today's standards, it had never been beaten yet.

…at least she damn well hoped so. The last thing she needed right now was a knock on the door and accusations of hacking into highly confidential medical files.

As her thumb made the final swipe to initiate and execute the worm virus, there came a sharp rapping sound from the other side of the door.

Her husband's voice called firmly from the other side of the door. "Rose. What are you doing in there?"


	6. Candy Crush

A/N: A few days off on vacation without access to my laptop ... and I get myself out of the groove a bit, so I didn't get as much covered as I had hoped I would... I hate it when that happens.

There's a weenie bit of pushing around in this chapter. Domestic disturbance kind've thing. If this is a trigger, please tread carefully. Tentoo is flip-flopping again and he has a little further to fall yet.

Hold firm for the next chapter as there is an introduction of someone very important to Rose and her ultimate salvation. It's going to be hard to get there, but I'm sure it'll be worth it. :)

If you've made it this far I thank you ... I very much thank you...

~~oooOOOooo~~

"Rose. What are you doing in there?"

Rose's eyes shot wide at the sound of her husband's voice on the other side of the door. She took a single moment for her mind to point out the coincidence of him arriving at the bathroom door at that exact moment in time – when she had inadvertently accessed the files of Doctor Song – and then urged her fingers into action.

She made a grunt that she hoped might've sounded like a peep of embarrassment, and quickly let her fingers fly over the face of her tablet to shut down the windows of incrimination that lingered insistently in the background.

His voice called for her once again, this time with much more urgency, and Rose had to peep.

"Just a mo', John," she called back in a sheepish tone of voice. "Just finishing up."

Well. That wasn't _exactly_ a lie. She was finishing up, but not quite in the manner that he was expecting on the other side of the door.

"Do I need to come in?" he queried with a slightly worried tone.

"Nah," she drawled back quickly. "M'good. Just a sec, yeah?"

"I can wait."

Rose slouched and dropped her forehead onto the top edge of her tablet. She could picture his stand on that other side of the door: In a side-lean, with his elbow and forearm pressed onto the white-painted wood right at his head. He'd be tapping the pads of his fingers on the door. He'd wait. Of course he would. There'd be no way he'd leave that doorway any time soon. He was curious, now. He wanted to know what she was up to. Rose wasn't typically a bathroom lingerer. She wouldn't typically spend… She looked at her watch … Thirty five minutes on the toilet.

"Really, Rose," he persisted from the door. "I'm beginning to wonder if you've fallen in."

She let out along moan of annoyance and swatted her hand on the wet wiped dispenser, which immediately tumbled to the floor with a clatter and thud. "Oh for the love of…"

"Ten seconds and I'm breaking in," he called. "One-one thousand. Two-one thousand. Three. I mean it, Rose. Four…"

Rose actually found herself smiling somewhat at his countdown as she hurriedly cleaned herself up and hauled herself to a stand. With the tablet tucked at her side, she used her free hand to tug up her knickers and then flush the toilet. She washed and dried one hand as she tapped at the tablet screen to open an app that she felt was a far more appropriate bathroom time killer.

"Seven-one thousand…"

Rose spun, adjusted her clothing, and blew out a preparatory breath as she curled her hand around the door knob to release the lock.

"What's with this persistence?" she shot in with a mock growl of annoyance. "Can't a girl get a little bit of privacy to engage in basic bodily functions without a stalking husband hovering at the door when he should be in bed sleeping?"

He shifted the lean of his forearm from the doorframe and onto the wall beside it to let her through the door. "You were in there for thirty seven minutes and fourteen seconds, Rose. That's a pretty extreme amount of time for a non-productive visit to the toilet."

Rose looked back over her shoulder with a slight grimace. Of course he'd know that it was – to use his term because it was so much more polite – non-productive.

"Candy Crush," she managed on a breath. "Soda. The Bubblegum Hill levels have changed and I have five different levels to play to get my crown." She held up her tablet to show him the image of a blob of jelly wearing a crown and waving a sceptre standing beside a two tiered cake castle. The first roundel of the five that created a pathway to castle doors flashed and pulsated at the bottom of the screen. "I want my crown, John."

His eyes shifted toward with her a slow and suspicious movement. "Vale," he corrected as he held up a mug of tea. "I don't like the name John."

Rose leaned forward to inhale the liquid that steamed inside the cup. She didn't need to look at the little white tag that hung from a thin white string down along the side of the mug to know what was inside. Her nose turned up and her eyes lifted with obvious disgust.

"Peppermint?"

He thrust it toward her. "You told me that you had a stomach ache, Rose. Peppermint tea is not only a good source of powerful antioxidants, but the volatile oils that are extracted from the leaves of the peppermint plant are renowned for their ability to unwind stomach cramps, alleviate gas and promote digestion. I read somewhere that the oils taken from the Mentha piperita plant has been shown to be a rather effective antispasmodic…"

"Wikipedia," she interrupted with a shake in her head as she took the mug from his hand and inhaled a deep breath of the steam. She lifted her eyes to the questioning arch of his brow. "We've had this discussion before," she clarified with a shrug.

He looked quite baffled. "We have?"

Rose nodded. "Several times, in fact. " She kissed at the very edge of the mug to draw in a small sip of the hot tea. She didn't shield her grimace of disgust from him as she turned on her heel to walk toward through to corridor toward the kitchen. "And each time I remind you that I absolutely hate the stuff, but you insist that I _must drink it all, Rose Tyler. Peppermint tea will settle that belly of yours in a jiffy!_ "

He didn't seem to quite know whether or not to be offended by her very poorly imitating his voice and accent, or to giggle at it, and only managed a half grimace/half smirk. That expression quickly shifted to a frown of question. "Huhm."

Rose twisted her head to look down her shoulder at him. "What? Well I can't be expected to like _everything_ , now, can I?"

He shook his head, with his frown still firmly in place, and thrust his hands into the pockets of his pyjama bottoms. "No. It's not that, Rose. I don't expect you to like _everything._ Life would be boring if you liked everything, wouldn't it?" He inhaled deeply and spoke as though trying to hold in his breath as he spoke. "Half the fun of living is to see what is good, bad, pretty, ugly, fun … no fun." He finally exhaled his entire breath. "And there's plenty out there that's not to like, let me tell you."

"Then what's with the _huhm_?" she queried as they stepped into the dining room that led toward their kitchen. She gestured toward the breakfast counter with a tip of her mug. "You only ever _huhm_ when something's prodded your curiosity button."

He was quiet for a moment, his eyes largely focused on the tiled floor at his feet. The silence was enough to have Rose prompt him again with a call of his name.

He shook himself and inhaled deep. "Oh. It's nothing."

"I don't believe you," she intoned blandly as she poured the tea down the sink and drew the teabag from the cup with a grasp between her thumb and finger that quite adequately displayed her loathe of the green tinged tea.

"That's the last time I do something nice for you," he remarked dryly with a flick of his hand toward the mug. "I slaved over a boiling kettle to make that for you."

"It's a bag of tea in a mug of water," she corrected him. "And I bet you used the Keurig for your hot water and not the kettle." She let her eyes flick to the Keurig machine and the used pod that was carelessly discarded beside the machine. "Evidence does suggest…"

"Yes. Yes," he drolled with a shake in his head. "Busted. I used the Keruig instead of using the kettle that would heat the water to the ideal temperature in which to steep your tea – which, I may add, is an absolute waste of time because you hate it and will just throw it out anyway."

She grinned widely at him. "Then why bother?"

"Because I am a loving, caring husband who will do anything for his beloved wife…"

"Except use a kettle instead of a Keurig to heat water."

He playfully punched his fist into his palm "Time was of the essence, Rose Tyler. You were in gastric peril. There was no time to boil the kettle to the absolute perfect temperature …"

"You had thirty-seven minutes, apparently," she argued with a smile as she lifted the lever for the tap to dispense water into her mug.

He replied with a hum through an open mouth. "Thirty seven minutes and fourteen seconds," he corrected cheekily.

"I stand corrected."

For a moment the pair fell into silence. Rose lifted the mug to her lips to draw back the water she'd pulled from the tap. She wondered just how long it would take for him to suggest that they return to bed so that he could go back to sleep. It would come soon enough. That wasn't to say that he was a particularly ardent sleeper – quite the opposite in fact - just that he refused to ever do it alone. She could see the circle underneath his eyes that suggested he was in need of a long night's rest.

Instead of making the offer, however, John walked toward the cabinet, drew out a mug, and then padded toward the water cooler at the opposite end of the counter. "We have to talk, you know."

With a sigh, she put her mug on the countertop. "about _what_ , exactly?"

He quietly filled his mug without answering her for a moment. He maintained not answering her question as he walked to the fridge and pulled down a small cylindrical container and popped off the lid. He continued to be silent as he dropped a pair of pills into his hand and then threw them into his mouth by cupping his hand over his mouth.

Rose watched the display with a curved brow and a look of slight annoyance. A heavy breath through a nose that was ready to be blown into a tissue escaped her finally and she shook her head as she spun on her toe to walk the opposite direction to him.

"Fine, then. Don't answer," she growled. "I'm goin' back to bed. You can stay down here."

"Is that you kicking me out of our bed, Rose?"

She stopped walking away from him and twisted around to look down her shoulder at him. After a moment she stepped around her foot to face him directly – albeit from about ten feet away.

"I'm not kicking you out of anything," she clarified. "But if you want to open a line of dialogue and then go all deliberately quiet when I ask for a simple clarification of the dialogue topic so you can fill a mug and pop some pills," She inhaled a breath with the intent to continue with her run on sentence.

"About yesterday," he cut in before he took a swig from his water. "And your visit to the other side."

She had zero desire to talk about that topic and three in the morning when she was inadequately caffeinated. "Yeah. Well. It was dealt with, yeah? You sent me along to have play time with Doctor Song as punishment for my little misadventure."

His eyes darkened and he let out a long and hard breath through his nose. With a shake in his head and a muttering of words she didn't immediately understand, he roughly spun a dial on the stove and set a metal kettle on top of the element.

"I forgot just how unreasonable you can be when you wake when you haven't got a good English Breakfast between your palms."

Rose replied only with an indignant look of utter annoyance.

"It's all for your own good," he continued dryly as he moved about the kitchen in search of the small ceramic teapot and the tea bags. "Me sending you to River, that is."

" _My_ good," she answered back. "Or _yours_?"

He pondered that question for a long moment with his eyes raised to the ceiling. "Well. That _is_ the question, isn't it?" He let his gaze fall back to the task at hand and focused his eyes on the motion of putting tea bags into an empty pot. "Anything that is good for you, in turn is good for me. Rassilon only knows what it would do for me to have something happen to you." His eyes shifted to look toward her with a gaze full of accusation. "To lose you across dimensional walls. I've been there once before and have very little desire for it to happen again, ta."

Rose folded her arms across her chest and moved her mouth as though she wanted to retort. John actually waited to see if any actual words would leave her mouth. His eyes were wide and expectant as he waited, but all he received were small sounds of indecision.

He finally nodded and looked back down to the pot. "I have River working with you to make sure that you're safe."

"So you're in full awareness of the experimental treatments and analysis that she's doing on me…" she inhaled. "On _you_?"

He laughed without looking at her and shook his head. "River's not doing anything that could be termed _experimental_ on me." He grinned and kept his eyes on the pot. "Well. Unless you consider continuing rehabilitation and pain management as _experimental_."

"Are you sure that's all?" she queried hotly.

His eyes lifted up finally. "Say what's on your mind, Rose." His voice was tinged with obvious annoyance.

"You're spending a lot of time with her."

He pursed his lips and nodded. "I see."

"You see what?"

The kettle whistled its readiness and he turned to pull it from the element. "You're jealous," he stated firmly as he twisted the dial to turn off the stove.

Her head tipped to one side and she watched him pour the boiled water into the ceramic pot. "Is that what you think?"

Be blew the rising steam from swirling into his face and set the hot kettle back onto the stovetop. "Don't get me wrong, Rose," he began with a smile. "It does give me a bit of a rush to know that you still experience jealousy when another woman makes her presence in our lives." His eyes lifted to hers. "Shows you still love me."

"Because that's in doubt?"

His head tipped off to one side. "Well," he drawled along an entire breath. "When you take off across dimensional walls in search of a man that I've repeatedly told you has no interest at all in picking up where the two of you left off." He cut himself off sharply and levered a darkened glare toward her. "I've warned you repeatedly about him, Rose. Warned you that once you left he'd move on and even marry another woman, yet you still decided to risk everything that you and I are together to chase off after him."

"Now who's jealous?" she snarled in reply.

"I've got every right to feel that way, don't I?"

She let out a laugh through her nose and looked away from him. "Hardly."

That made both brows shoot high. He abandoned the making of tea to stride quickly toward her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

She inhaled a deep breath with the full intention of finally bringing forth the accusation of his infidelity with Doctor Song. It was there, oh it was. She was a breath away from finally calling that affair out in the open.

He spoke first in a breath full of aggression born of frustration and insecurity. "It took me two years, Rose. Two years to finally convince you that I was worthy of your love. That I was more than just a booby prize handed to you by a man … a … a _Time Lord_ that was raised by a society that expressly forbid endeavours like love and marriage and fidelity and honour to one glorious creature for the rest of our lives."

 _And you want to throw it all away – thirty years of marriage – by messin' about with another woman,_ her mind supplied cruelly.

"I was born," he continued hotly. " _Born_ in love with you. Everything he couldn't give you I'm able to." He cupped her cheek in his hand and softened his tone of voice. His eyes lifted wide and his brows furrowed in pleading. "And I do, Rose. Oh, I so do."

"I know."

"But do you?" He challenged her softly with a pinch in his eyes. "Do you _really_ know just how much I love you; how much I need you; how my life means absolutely nothing if you're not here to share it with me?"

She cupped her hand over his and offered him a smile of assurance. "I know, John. I know."

His hand stiffened underneath hers. "No you don't," he stated darkly. His hand twitched once underneath hers and then he roughly pulled it away from her. "And my name's Valeyard, Rose. I've already told you."

"Twenty five years of calling you John," she supplied indignantly. "Sorry if I fall into habit…"

"Tell me why you did it," he demanded with a growl, completely ignoring her words. "Why did you cross over? Do you want to leave me?"

She shook her head with only a minute shift of her head. "Of course I don't. You're my _husband_ ," she affirmed. "All I want to do is _help_ you."

His voice fell to a harsh whisper. "I don't _need_ help."

"Don't you?" Her eyes pinched in tight. "You spend almost every day in a Doctor's office supposedly doing rehabilitation and pain management. But for _what,_ Vale?" She looked him up and down. "You weren't hurt in the accident. Not like me. Not like Jamie…"

"Don't mention that name."

"He was your son," she yelled with obvious frustration. " _Our child_. How can you just choose to forget him and everything he meant to the two of us? What kind of insensitive monster wants to forget about the single most important thing in his entire life?"

One side of his mouth twisted into a smile. "And you're telling me that I didn't suffer at all, Rose? You're calling me a _monster_ because I can't bear the thought of losing my son in the way we did so I want to _forget_."

She lifted a finger to point into his chest. "That's not healthy. You're not letting yourself grieve, and therefore you're not letting _me_ do it, either."

He looked away from her and lifted his nose to the ceiling.

"Is this all on the advice of your physician, Vale? Is this part of the rehabilitation and pain management regime set out by your Doctor Song?" She walked around to his side in an attempt to draw his focus back down to her. "Is agreeing for them to experiment on the two of us part of that rehab as well?"

"You really don't know what you're talking about," he said with an annoyed sniff and a refusal to look down at her. "Our sessions are…"

"Does she really fuck _that_ well that you'll blindly agree to whatever nonsense that woman asks of you?"

His eyes flashed open and shot furiously toward her. "Just what are you accusing me of?"

Rose snorted out of her nose and shook her head. She turned from him with a dismissive wave of her hand. "And you _dare_ get upset because I had a navigational issue with a Dimension Canon." She looked down her shoulder at him with an expression of absolute disgust. "You're hardly in a position to get all jealous because I _almost_ bumped into someone I used to know."

Her breath escaped her with a violent exhale as Rose Tyler found herself suddenly shoved up against the wall by her irate husband. His breaths fierce as he bored into her with furious eyes.

"The man you _loved_ ," he corrected with horrific darkness in his tone. "The Doctor was a man you practically tore the universe apart for." He panted a couple of hot breaths against her face. "I have every right in the universe to get jealous because you took the very first opportunity you had to leap across walls to get to him."

She winced at the harsh grip he had on her shoulders. "Vale…"

"I have more than jealousy rights," he continued on a gravelly voice. "I have apocalyptic rights of utter fury."

She shuddered inside his grasp and battled not to whimper. "And what about _my_ rights, Vale? What rights do I have when you're bedding another woman?"

His eye twitched. His lip curled. His voice dropped equal amounts octaves and decibels. "You are second best to no one else in my life," he said darkly. "You are the single most important creature in all creation in any life I've ever had. The love I have for you kills me with absolution if your eyes so much as look in the direction of another man." His exhale blew wetly through his nose. "And yet. In your eyes I'm still second to _him_ , aren't I?"

"You're wrong," she corrected hotly. "I don't love him. Not anymore."

He relaxed his hold on her for a moment, only to tighten his grip and shove her against the wall again when he heard her voice of relief. "Then why did you run to him? Tell me, Rose. Why did you run straight to him the first moment you got?"

"I didn't," she managed in a strangled voice. "It was an accident. I didn't mean to materialize anywhere near him or the TARDIS."

He let out a laugh into her face. "I don't believe in coincidences."

She whimpered finally, the pain of each one of his long fingers digging into her skin becoming too much to bear. "Vale. Please. You're hurting me."

"You'll heal," he growled. "It's just a contusion."

Her eyes snapped open wide and her breath drew in hard. "What?"

"Your body's already in action to repair the blood flow under my fingers." He moved his face close to hers and closed his eyes as he inhaled deeply. "Lindos energy." He hummed appreciatively. "Time's little gift to her travellers. The hormone of repair and regeneration. Oh, but it curses through your veins, doesn't it?"

Rose's eyes were locked wide and her breaths came in shorts pants that heaved her chest up and down in time with her frantic heartbeat. "So you know…"

"That you're producing Lindos?" he asked in a slightly nonchalant manner. "Yeah. River might've mentioned that you produced a hormone that was rather a-typical of a human being." He dragged the flat of his tongue up along her neck, from collarbone to ear. He then slapped his tongue against the roof of his mouth and smiled as though he tasted a particularly amazing flavour on his tongue. "I told her it was nothing to concern herself with. It's just a throwback to time travelling by TARDIS." He kissed at her earlobe. "It's why you look so incredibly good for an old girl."

"And why you're looking more like fourty than seventy," she ventured carefully.

He pulled back sharply and tipped his head to one side to give her a wary look. "What're you suggesting?"

"Well…" The words were on her tongue. She slapped her tongue on the dried roof of her mouth ready to open the can of worms and see just how much he knew about the experimentation. Her breath drew in hard and deep and she brought her head forward to finally admit everything that Doctor Song was doing in her experiments. The time was now. She parted her lips and let a small breath of air ghost through her lips.

"Vale. I love you."

Both his and her brows knotted together in surprise at that. He pinched his eyes closed just slightly in suspicion. "Oh-Kay."

Rose tightened her grimace of surprise further and shook her head. That had not been her intention at all. What she wanted to say was that she was being horrifically abused and experimented on in some of the most painful methods known to mankind. She shook herself and tried to explain it again.

"Vale," she began again in a slow and measured pace. "You have to believe me." So far so good. "I love you more than anything else in this entire universe and beyond. And I will. Forever."


	7. Infidelity

A/N: I want to send a shout out of thanks to LovelyAmberLight and KeplersDream who have both been terrific in giving me their time and their comments on where I am faltering and how to improve not just the tale, but my writing in general. I'm never going to be perfect, and neither will the story (which is totally my fault), but it sure is nice to get that tap on the shoulder and some sage advice. Thanks to you both.

Now to the chapter: I really really don't quite know how to preface this chapter except to say that it gets a little ugly.

I expected this chapter to be really short and therefore was planning to do the next bit, which gives our girl a little bit of hope when all of hers seems to have fallen off the planet somehow. Sadly, that didn't happen and this monster ended up a 4K pot of absolute angst that is bound to upset more than a few people - especially those who love Tentoo and Rose.

This chapter is quite dark and shows a completely unraveled Tentoo. There are a couple of quite disgusting references to casual sex that may offend - but no act occurs at all in this chapter.

I make zero apologies for what I wrote in here, but do issue warning to tread lightly as there are likely several triggers in here.

Things do lighten up a little from here, I promise. Hope comes to Rose in a rather unexpected way...

 _~~oooOOOooo~~~_

 _"_ _Vale," she began again in a slow and measured pace. "You have to believe me." So far so good. "I love you more than anything else in this entire universe and beyond. And I will. Forever."_

Rose's heart immediately rose up into her throat and wedged itself firmly inside her esophagus. She could still breathe, but swallowing was proving difficult to do around that damned heart.

Vale's harsh grip on her arms softened with her declaration and he lifted one hand to lightly drag the backs of his fingers down along her cheek. His eyes were soft and his voice a tender croaking timbre.

"And I love you too, my precious girl." He dragged his thumb across her plump lower lip. "So. So much."

Rose's breath hitched when his head cocked little to one side and he began a slow descent toward her mouth. She wanted to pull back, to correct what she'd said to him. She wanted to scream at him about what he was allowing Doctor Song to do to her, but found herself only able to whisper his name.

"I'm right here," he assured her gently as his lips brushed hers. "I'm always going to be right here for you, Rose." He stooped as he slid his hand around her backside and clutched firmly at her thigh. With a grunt he drew her knee up to hook her leg around his hip, and then straightened his back to lift her off the ground.

"C'mon," he purred against her throat as he held her in place and walked toward the stairs. "Let's go back to bed."

With one leg hooked around his hip and the other left dangling in front of his, and her arms pinned in between their chests, Rose was hardly comfortable. She wriggled a little in search of freedom and was rewarded with a husky chuckle against her ear.

"Settle, Rose. We'll be in bed soon enough and you can writhe against me as much as you want." His lips pressed against her hair. "In fact I look forward to it."

She stilled momentarily and contemplated just what the next hour or so might entail, and found herself feeling sick to her stomach. Writhing naked against anyone – particularly him - was currently at the very top of the list of things she had absolutely no interest in doing at this very precise moment. It was at the top gilded with a golden _No Entry_ sign coiled with chains and padlocks forged from dwarf stars.

Halfway up the stairs, she began to squirm in earnest. "Vale. Vale, let me go."

He stumbled under her incessant and insistent wriggling, and fell against the stair's bannister. He kept his hold firm, however. "Rose. Stop it. You'll make the two of us tumble down the stairs if you keep that up."

"Then let me go," she demanded with a strangled tone as she pushed her hands against his chest and pushed herself back as far as she could.

He maintained his firm hold with all of the tenacity of a father trying to keep hold of a squirming toddler. "Rose. Really. Stop it."

"Then let me go," she repeated with exasperation.

"No." His eyes darkened as he shook his head. "I'm never letting you go, Rose." He snapped his arms more tightly around her and grunted out loudly as he fought against her kicking legs to ascend the stairs. "You can run," he continued as he tripped his toe on the top step and staggered a heavy slam of his shoulder into the wall across the landing. He hissed through his teeth at the pain in his shoulder from impact. "But I'll always find you. You'll always come home to me."

Rose panted a quick staggering of breaths that were in no way deep enough to stop her from getting lightheaded. She ceased her struggling, but kept her hands against his chest in a determined effort to hold herself as far from him as she possibly could. "M'not goin' anywhere," she assured him. Please just let me down."

He shook his head and then his torso as he finally pulled himself up from his stumbled lean against the wall and latched his eyes onto hers as he walked his autonomous path toward the bedroom. "Never letting you go, Rose."

He carried her through the doorway and toward the rumpled bed in the centre of the room. He dropped her onto the mattress and immediately climbed over her, straddling her hips between his knees and holding her arms over her head with a firm hold of his hands around her wrists.

Rose didn't bother to struggle against him. She lay heavily atop the rumpled duvet that was bunched uncomfortably underneath her back. Her chest heaved with quickened breaths that she was determined to slow and deepen despite her panic.

"What are you going to do?" she queried on a voice she forced through her teeth. "Force me?"

His brows drew together in a tight knit in the centre of his forehead. There was a grimace of hurt across his eyes as he tilted his head in question. "Is that something you think I'm even capable of, Rose?"

She made a deliberate show of shifting her eyes to look at his current position and the looming posture he had over her. She let her eyes flick back to his. "I don't know what you're capable of anymore," she admitted hotly.

His voice softened, but his grasp remained firm. "I'd kill myself before I would even consider doing something like that to you."

"Then why do you have me in this position?" She exhaled a wet breath that blew spittle against his face. "If you don't intend on…" She gulped. "Following through."

His grasp loosened just slightly on her wrists. His voice was pained and his expression wounded. "Do you really think I've become _that much_ of a monster?"

Tears leaked from her eyes and trailed down to her ear. "Look at us," she offered quietly. "Right now. Here. Look at what you're doing to me."

He blinked and let his eyes trail down along her face, down the length of her neck, her chest, belly, and hips. They stopped where the seat of his body curled around her thighs. He kept his eyes on the crotch of his flannel pyjama pants and let out a resigned breath. "There was a time when you considered me getting you into a position like this was fun; that it would always end with you and I making love and becoming one with each other." He lifted his eyes to hers. "What happened, Rose?"

"You changed," she answered quietly, the struggle gone completely from her.

He blinked and looked into her eyes, but said nothing.

"Where's the man I fell in love with?" she asked softly. "Where's John?" she inhaled and repeated the question, this time replacing _John_ with the eleven musical syllables that sounded out his Gallifreyan name.

He slowly unwrapped his hands from around her wrists and levered his body upward. His Adam's apple bobbed with a hard swallow as he drew his fingertips along the length of her crooked arms and onto her shoulders. He exhaled slowly as he drew his thumbs along her collarbone.

"When you say that name, Rose," he began softly. He let his eyes finally rise to hers. "Are you thinking of me, or are you thinking of _him_?"

She deflated completely. "Are we really going to start that again, Vale?"

The rub of his thumbs along her collarbone grew rougher and heavier. "Just answer the question." The softness in his eyes hardened. "Are you thinking of _me_ , or are you thinking of the one who abandoned you on a beach over thirty years ago?"

Rose drew her hands down from where they'd remained above her head. With a sigh she lifted them to touch just the pads of her fingers on his chest. She smiled at the inhale that hissed through his teeth at her touch. "I'm thinking about the man who stayed behind with me on that beach," she clarified. "The man I fell in love with, married, had a beautiful son with." She inhaled deeply and bit her lip as she focused her eyes on his. "John…"

"…Is dead," Vale finished for her. "Five years ago when the two front tyres blew out on his vehicle and it flipped three times before it landed on its roof." The rub of his thumbs along her collarbone stopped, and his thumbs flexed to dig them into her skin.

She winced at the deep press of his thumbs into the hollow of her skin underneath her collarbone. "Vale," she urged fearfully. "Don't say that."

"Dead, Rose," he clarified cruelly. "Just like his beloved boy. John Smith: The weak-minded idiot who forgot who he was…"

"Don't you _dare_ speak like that."

Vale dropped his head and lifted a brow. He regarded her with a smile that touched only one side of his mouth. "He died that night, Rose Tyler." He gave her a wink. "But I survived. Reborn I suppose you could say. A complete psychological regeneration." He chuckled. "Well look at that, Rose. I can regenerate after all."

She opened her mouth to protest and was immediately prevented by doing so as he pressed his finger against her lips.

"And no," he lectured condescendingly. "I _can't_ change back, so don't ask." He kept his finger on her lip, but raised his head to look at the ceiling above. "Or is it that I _won't_ change back? It's actually quite possible that I _could_ change back if I _wanted_ to, but where's the fun in that?" He grinned and lowered his gaze back down to the woman he held underneath him. "Half the fun of regenerating is seeing just what little surprises the change has in store for you. Am I right?"

Rose merely held her breath and blinked up at him.

He tipped his head to one side and let his eyes crinkle at the sides when he felt the impact of the emotion conveyed within her eyes.

"Fear, darling?" he questioned curiously. "Is that actually _fear_?" He shook his head. "Oh no. No. No. No no no no no. No." He let his mouth break out into a wide smile. "You're the safest person in the entire multiverse. Don't you understand that?" He moved his hands to stroke and cup at her cheeks. "I'm never going to let you come to any harm, Rose. Never." He leaned forward and pressed his lips against her forehead. "I love you. I have always loved you. Inside the box, outside the box, inside my head and out of my mind. I love you."

She shuddered underneath him and winced at the press of his lips against her forehead. "Vale," she pleaded sadly. "Please let me go. Please."

He dropped his mouth to her cheek and dragged his lips along the very apple in her cheek. He smiled at the feeling of her shuddering underneath him. "I can still make you quiver, can't I?"

She shook her head and inhaled a wet and congested sniff. "Please let me go."

"Oh," he sang lightly as he peppered her face with tiny kisses. "I'm never letting you go." He exhaled a moan. "I know. It's been a while, Love. It's been so long since we've touched each other like this. So very long." He lifted his head only enough to look into her eyes. "It's been almost three months since we've made love. Hasn't it?" He dipped his head and kissed at her throat. "Two months." He shifted his mouth to her chin. "Three weeks." He nipped at her chin with his lips. "Four days."

She squirmed underneath him.

"Twelve hours." He inhaled a sniff of her skin. "Seven minutes and eighteen seconds since I last had you singing to the heavens of your love for me."

She inhaled a deep gulping sob.

"Since I looked down at you falling apart underneath me," he continued softly and with absolute reverence. "Rassilon, Rose. Noone is as beautiful as you are at that magnificent moment that you lose yourself when I'm moving inside you." He nipped at the very edge of her mouth with his lips. "Absolutely no one compares to you in that moment."

"Not even River Song?"

Vale froze more at the coldness in the question than at the question itself. Obviously the question stabbed him directly in the groin, but the defeated and emotionless manner in which Rose posed the question made him catch his own breath deep in the back of his throat.

"Excuse me?"

Rose looked up into his face with a stoic and icy expression on her face. "I think you heard me," she replied. "But in case your superior hearing missed its meaning: Does my apparent beauty when I am brought to climax by your unfaithful cock surpass the expression River Song gives you when you do the same to her?"

"That's how you respond to a compliment," he shot back incredulously. "By bringing in another woman?"

She snorted. "Why not? You have."

He sat himself up and folded his arms across his chest. "I just laid my soul bare to you, Rose, and this is how you respond to my unwavering love for you?"

She remained held underneath him, but was able to cross her arms in a defiant manner. "Just answer the question, Vale. Does River Song look as so reverently beautiful when you make her come?"

He inhaled a deep breath and lifted his head just enough that he looked along his nose down at her. "I wouldn't know."

Her expression hardened. Anger swirled inside her eyes. "You know. I'd be less pissed off at that response if you gave me the truthful answer."

"Are you accusing me of lying?"

The fold of her arms tightened across her chest. "If you think I don't know what the two of you get up to behind her office door, then you're an even bigger idiot than I thought you were." She released the fold of her arms to renew her squirming attempt at escape. "It might've been three months since you've touched me, Vale, but I'll place wagers that it's been less than a week since you've fucked her."

He maintained his tight grip on her thighs with his, but didn't release the fold of his arms across his chest, nor the high looming glare than he stared down at her with. "Four days if you want to be precise," he answered callously.

That answer made her still. Although she knew beyond all doubt that an affair was most assuredly happening between her husband and Doctor Song, to hear it actually confirmed by her husband gave her instantaneous nausea. As much as she wanted it finally out in the open – to have it confirmed like that finally removed that tiny little shred of hope that she was simply imagining it all.

"S-So," she stuttered. "It-It's true."

His lips and nose turned up with a deep sniff. "But if you want me to answer your question of a comparison between the two of you then my answer still remains firm." He looked down at her finally. "I wouldn't know, because I've never actually ever gotten her there."

Rose's eyes widened with a mixture of disbelief and disgust. Her reply was spoken so breathlessly that it was barely audible. "What did you say?"

He shrugged with a roll of his eyes. "And even if I did get her anywhere close to that stage of things, I wouldn't see her face anyway. Typically she's bent across the desk and I'm…"

"Get off me!" Rose bellowed with a desperately urgent need to fracture the remainder of his explanation. "You disgusting, filthy, revolting…"

He refused to budge. "It's just _sex_ , Rose." His eyes pinched with confusion. "Pointless release. That's all. Lindos hormone injections have a rather unfortunate side effect…"

"God," she moaned painfully. "Please. Get off me."

"It doesn't make any difference in how I feel about you, Rose," he assured her vehemently. "What you and I have together, it's…"

"It's over!" she finished with a growl.

His response was barely audible. "What?"

"You heard me," she growled with disgust. "We're done. Over. Finished."

His entire face fell. His eyes widened and his head shook from side to side in disbelief. "No. No. You can't say that, Rose. You can't mean it."

She stopped squirming for a short moment to stare up at him with an expression of incredulous disbelief. "Why not? Vale. There are things about you that I can overlook. I can live and hope that one day the man I love will break through whatever spell's come over you because I love you and I know that deep inside you somewhere you love me to."

"I've never denied my feelings for you," he vowed fiercely. "Since the day I grew from a severed hand I was honest about how much I love you."

"But what I can't forgive," she continued emotionally. "I can't forgive the fact that you not only broke the vows you gave on our wedding day: To love, honour, cherish. To forgo all others…"

"Rose.."

"But that you care so little for the woman you're throwing away thirty years of marriage for…" She took a moment to inhale a shaking breath through her mouth "…That. That …" She exhaled and inhaled again. "She's nothing but a worthless piece of garbage to you, is she?"

His brows pinched together and he shook his head. "I _care_ about her," he admitted softly. "Just. Not like that. She knows that what she and I share means absolutely nothing."

Her nose crinkled in absolute disgust. "You shouldn't be sharing _anything_ with her at all. Not when you have a loving and doting wife waiting for you at home."

"Who will _still_ be waiting for me, yeah?"

There was a hopeful and even juvenile tone to his voice that almost did her in, but Rose simply shook her head. "No, Vale. Not anymore." She inhaled at the catch in his breath. "I'm finished. I can't do this anymore."

His voice fell to a whisper. "You're leaving me." He spoke it as fact and not the question he'd intended it to be. "Despite how you are all I have in this entire universe and that I'll never survive here without you – you're going to leave me?"

She looked up at him with agony in her eyes. "Why not, John? _You_ left _me_."

The moment that Rose's words left her lips, Vale's eyes and face darkened. "So that's what this is about then? _Him_?" His hands snapped toward her shoulders to shove her down hard into the mattress. "You find yourself a way to cross those damn dimensional walls and all of a sudden thirty years of marriage to me means absolutely _nothing_?"

Rose's face tightened up in confusion. Her eyes pinched and her jaw gaped slightly. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh," he huffed with a dark chuckle. "Didn't mean to admit that out loud, Rose? Hmmm? Didn't want to be truthful about why you're really leaving?" He leaned down over her face and puffed heated breath against her mouth. "Oh, but you're a tricky girl, aren't you? I'd call you brilliant, and let's be honest, I think you are…"

She struggled underneath him. "Get off me. Now!"

"So your devious little mind forces me to admit a slight indiscretion so you have the opening you need to get up and walk out without an ounce of guilt." He tipped his head to one side. "And. Well. Why should it surprise me at all. Kind've your M.O., isn't it? Dump the one you're with to go gallivanting across the universe with the Doctor."

Her breath drew in deeply not just at the horrid way that the word _Doctor_ curled so distastefully around his tongue, but in the disgusting accusation. "Leave him out of it, Vale," she growled. "This has nothing to do with anything on the other side of any walls. It has everything to do with you, with me, and with your betrayal…"

"Says the woman who stole my dimensional beacon and crossed the walls," he snapped in reply. When she turned her head from him, he cupped her chin in his hand and forced her to look back at him. "Get it into your head that he doesn't _want_ you anymore. He's moved on. He's got himself someone else … just like he always does."

"I don't want him," she declared quietly. "I want John. My husband."

He leaned down to whisper against her ear. "I don't believe you."

She shoved her hands against his chest, a heavy slap to get him off her. "I said get off me! I'm leaving, Vale, without a vortex manipulator or a dimension canon. I'm not crossing walls, I'm just leaving this house."

His laugh peppered out of his lips like coughs from an air-gun. "No. You're not."

Fury laced her eyes. "You can't stop me."

"I'm doing a pretty fairly good job of it right now, aren't I?" he challenged with a smirk. "You're not going anywhere while I've got you held down like this, are you?"

Rose Tyler took that challenge, chewed on it for a half-second, and then spat it right back into his face. With a cry, she stiffened her body, arched her back, and then started to thrash wildly underneath him. She cried out her demands for him to get off him and to let her go, and for a brief moment she began to believe that she just may have had the upper hand as he bounced up and off her.

She rolled quickly onto her stomach and pushed herself to slide forward off the bed, but only made it as far as the floor before he was upon her once again.

"You," he grunted as he fought against her flailing hands and kicking legs. "Are not." He dropped down once more onto her thighs and held her firm with his own. "You're not going _anywhere_ ," he announced firmly. "Especially not to _him_."

Rose continued to writhe beneath him, kicking at his back with her knees and slapping at his face and neck with her arms. "You can't hold me forever, Vale," she threatened him with an aggressively high-pitched tone. "Sooner or later you're going to have to get off me."

"You're right," he growled darkly as he stopped fighting against her flailing hands. "You're absolutely right."

The darkened tone in his voice gave her momentary pause, and she stopped kicking and hitting at him. Her breath drew in deep and hard. "Then why wait?" she queried cautiously.

"Quite right," he answered calmly. "Why wait?"

The calmness in his voice undid her completely. She panted worriedly and spoke his name very softly.

He smiled gently at the fear he could hear in his name. "Oh my Rose. I'm not going to hurt you. I'll never hurt you." He lowered his hands to stroke at her reddened face. "I love you. You have to know that."

Her eyes widened as his fingers danced lightly across her face. "What're you….?" His thumbs found their place on the apples of her cheeks and she felt the shift of his first and middle fingers toward her temple. Her eyes widened and she tried to shake her head. "No, Vale. Don't you dare!"

He pursed his lips to shush her with a gentle hiss of his breath. "It's okay, Rose."

"I don't consent," she cried out as she watched his eyes flutter closed. "No. Don't go into my head. I don't consent! You can't! You're not allowed to."

"Oh, I can get in there," he said softly. "Your consent is just a formality." His brows pinched and his eyes tightened. With a growl he bared his teeth. "Shields, Rose? How did you know how to erect shields."

Rose let out a scream and kicked her legs. Her hands lifted to cover his and she clawed helplessly at his hands. "You can't!"

"Oh, Love. I _can_ ," he vowed softly. "And if I were you I'd drop these shields you've put up in your mind – otherwise you're going to wake up with quite a nasty little headache tomorrow."

Her head already ached in protest to his touch. She panted for relief, and struggled to fight against an incessant knocking sensation that turned to pounding at the very edge of her consciousness. It was an explosion of shattering defenses that announced his intrusion inside her mind, and Rose Tyler felt like she was swallowing glass shards as she finally fell into darkness.


	8. Pundiharhiran

A/N: This starts a little on the painful side, but quickly brightens up to end on a very light note.

This bloody chapter ran on and on and on ... It didn't want to stop! Sorry, but I'm giving you a 6K monster of a chapter today ... sorry if that ends up TL;DR...

The species name I've given the TARDIS isn't canon. I did try to look at just what species grew into those magnificent sentient time machines, but had no luck. So I thought "Sod it" I'll think of my own name ... So I did.. :)

I don't think I can write a tale without dropping in an original character to play with. This fic is no different. Rose finds herself a new ally, one that just might be able to pull her out of the danger she's found herself in and take her toward the one man who can truly help her...

There are many ways that one could describe the sensations of a migraine headache: A heavy pounding behind the eyes with a pressure that felt like they could explode from their sockets with even a slight movement, a full and pulsing ache that seems to press down from the very air above rendering the victim completely immobile, or even a grinding vibrating rattle of the skull that seems to jackhammer the brain into a grey pulsing soup of which the only relief might be to grab a tissue and blow it all out of one's nose.

To Rose Tyler, her migraine consisted of a mass of incredible swirling and haunting voices that swept around her mind screeching and bellowing into the most deepest recesses of her brain. Voices that had claws and hand held drums … clawing and banging … screaming and yelling … Each one of them telling her that only death would ease the pain.

And for a brief moment she begged for just that. She managed to open her eyes just barely. She opened them to mere slits to let in just enough vision for her to assess just where it was that she was currently lying in wait for death. Not that she really needed visual proof, mind. She could immediately tell by the fluffy goose-filled duvet and the memory foam pillows that carried the scent of her husband that she was in her bed. But she wanted to make sure anyway. She didn't often wake without him beside her – or more accurately _wrapped around_ her – so she needed to make very sure she was actually in her own bed…

…Not that she wouldn't be, of course. While she was once a traveller that spent more time in unfamiliar beds than she did her own, over the past few years she rarely ventured away from home. Trips to Doctor Song's offices were the furthest she had gone since the accident.

Speaking of Doctor Song…

Rose moaned and covered her eyes with her forearm as the memories of her argument with Vale rose to her consciousness with startling clarity. Typically she didn't recall the intricacies behind any of their tiffs and rows, but this one seemed to want to remain crystal clear. She didn't have to strain to recall any small part of it. The whole thing played out like a show on the telly, High Definition and all.

It made her want to vomit.

Or was that the migraine?

She felt the increase in her respiration and the clutching cramp in her stomach that warned her she was about to retch. Her mouth watered and her throat contracted painfully. She had just enough time to flip onto her side and lean over the edge of the mattress before her stomach decided to push its way up into her throat. A sickly and involuntary heaving sound made bellowed from deep inside her chest, but there was no substance to her retch besides rancid breath. After three painful contractions and coughs toward the hardwood slats of their bedroom floor, Rose managed to lift herself to fall onto her side at the very edge of the bed.

She blinked her watering eyes free of tears and struggled to clear her vision. She focused on two small white cylindrical shapes on the bedside table and let her breaths even out. Pills. They were two chalky white pain caplets that sat in the puddle caused by the condensation of a bottle of water at their side.

She blew out a breath and shifted her gaze to a small tented card beside the bottle. Carefully deliberate neat script read: " _For your headache, Rose. I'm so sorry you're in pain. Rest. Recover. I'll see you later. We'll do something special tonight, just you and me. I love you. Valeyard xx"_

Disgust filled her at that moment. How dare he be so nonchalant about what happened between them last night? Did he think that forgiveness was going to come so easy just because he left her a couple of pain pills and a bottle of water to wash it down?

She flicked her finger angrily at one of the pills and watched with a sneer of defiance in her eye as it flew off the table, ricocheted off the window sill beyond the small armchair in the corner of the room and then landed with a tiny little clunk on the floor beside her.

"I hate you and I hate him," she growled toward the little caplet that lingered along the line of light and shadow from the window. "Well. Not _hate_ …" Her brows pinched tightly together with indecision on that emotion. That pinch lasted only a moment before the pain in her head reminded her in a rather cruel manner to limit her movement.

"Okay," she corrected as she hurriedly swatted at the table for one pill and then reached awkwardly over the edge of the mattress for the other. "Maybe I'll actually fall in love with the two of you if you'll only…" her words ended with a humph as she lost her precariously held balance over the edge of the mattress and then fell heavily to the floor.

A loud moan of absolute deathly agony poured out of her throat as her head fiercely protested that movement. Rose used that wide open mouth to cup her hand over it and toss the pills as far back into her throat as was possible. She then rose up onto her knees and lifted her hand above her head to retrieve the bottle of water. She was partially relieved to find that the lid had already been thoughtfully unscrewed; it meant she didn't have to exert any unnecessary energies in struggling to open it.

She drew back long and deep and let her head hang backward for a long moment as she felt the movement of the cool liquid make its languid way down into her gullet. She counted the seconds it took to finally make it to her stomach, and then slowly rocked her head forward to let it hang limply on her shoulders. She blew out a breath that fluttered the frilly hems of her sleep shorts and willed the drugs to take immediate effect.

They wouldn't. She knew they wouldn't. But perhaps if she got up and walked around for a while she could work that wonderful migraine killing drug into her system. It would take some effort to haul herself to her feet and then encourage them to move on her behalf, but she would try.

It turned out that it didn't take too much coaxing at all to get herself moving. It took some time to coax _herself_ into attempting to move – about ten minutes or so – but by that stage the medication was starting to take a tender hold on the situation. She found she could move without searing pain flashing through her mind and so she slowly made her way along the carpeted hallway and down the stairs. By the time her bare feet touched the tiled floor at the base of the stairs, her migraine had dulled to a strong headache.

"I can do this," she muttered to herself with only a small wince on facing direct sunlight through the kitchen window. "I'm Rose Tyler – Bad Wolf – Destroyer of the Emperor of the Daleks and his hybrid battle fleet. I can face the morning sun!"

She strode toward the sliding glass door that led toward their patio deck. She looked out through the plate glass with a squint as she let her hand drop so that she could flick open the lock with her thumb.

It didn't budge…

Her brow tightened into a grimace of confusion and she looked down at the handle to try it again.

Again, it didn't budge.

"What the?" She bent at the knees to lower herself a little to better investigate the issue at hand. Her eyes widened at what she saw. It had been deadbolted. Deadbolted and sealed and therefore completely unopenable without a very specific key.

Without any further investigation on that door, and with rising panic insisting on investigations being required on the other exits to the home, Rose Tyler fled to the front door of their home. In her haste to check it out, she barely managed to stop herself from colliding against the stained glass panel set beside the door. She stepped form foot to foot to balance herself and then lowered herself at the knees to look at the handle.

Deadlocked.

Both hands flew up to her head and she raked her fingers painfully through hair that was in desperate need of being brushed. She twisted side to side and paced foot to foot as sounds of worry flew past her lips.

 _"_ _I'm leaving this house..."_

 _"_ _You can't stop me."_

 _"_ _Sooner or later you're going to have to get off me…"_

The memories of her threats to him last night crashed down hard on her. She told him she was going to leave, that he couldn't stop her … and he took that challenge. He rendered her unconscious with an attack on her mind to give him all the time he needed to make sure that no matter where he was or what he was doing, there'd be no way in which she could leave him.

"Oh," she breathed out along a very long exhale. "You can't do this to me, Vale. You just can't!"

She tugged hard on the unresponsive doorhandle. She tugged. She pulled. She jiggled and twisted. She yelled out. She slapped it. She pounded against it. She gave up and pressed her forehead against it to finally let out a defeated cry. Her forehead remained against the wood and roughly dragged down across the bumps and valleys of the intricately carved door as she dropped to her knees and began to sob.

She was trapped, now. Trapped, and there was nothing she could do about it. She lost contact with all of her friends in the years since Jamie died. She had no family left since Jackie passed and Pete left England to accompany Tony on his humanitarian medical aid commitments in Africa.

She let out a snort. Even if they were contactable, Vale had probably disconnected the phones somehow. No doubt the wifi was also disabled. She didn't see the need to check any of them. He was nothing if not efficient. He would've thought far beyond the simple act of making sure a door was locked. In fact, she'd place wagers on the fact that he'd bugged and sensored the entire home. Surveillance cameras perhaps…?

She looked up to the doorway that joined the entrance hallway and the living room and noted with a sinking heart the blinking red light of a camera pointed directly at her. Without care for whatever sensibilities the person monitoring the surveillance feeds held, she lifted her hand, let her middle finger rise tall and mouthed _fuck you_ into the lens.

Her defiant arrogance was short-lived, however, and she quickly slumped back against the wall, in amongst the discarded shoes that were thrown into a haphazard pile at the side of the door.

"What am I going to do?" she whined softly to herself. She slumped in defeat. "I'm a prisoner in my own home."

She leaned back to rest her head against the door that led to their basement and let out a hard breath though her nose. She turned sideways on her inhale to rest her shoulder and ear against the door. She wanted to put her back toward the camera. She wanted to make sure that there was no way that he would see the utter devastation in her face. She wanted to cry without his cameras looking at her. She didn't want him to see her tears – even though she knew it would destroy him to see them. He might be behaving like an inconsiderate ass right now, but she knew there'd be no way he'd handle seeing her cry. He never could. He'd probably rush home and try to console her, and the last thing she wanted right now was accept any form of sympathy from him.

Her shoulders shook with her sorrow and her chest heaved with the gulping sobs that wracked her tiny body. Every inhale she drew in was wet and shaking. Each exhale was painfully choked. She curled in on herself and pressed herself heavily against the door.

And then she heard it. A sound of empathy. A small hum from beyond the door that seemed to weave itself through the smallest of cracks between the door and its frame. A hum of support that curled itself around her ankles and snaked up toward her chest. Her breath drew in and she held it deep inside for a long while to focus on that unusual – but somehow familiar sound.

She was finally forced to exhale a sharp breath and drew in a second one with a forceful gulp. There was something beyond the door. Something that lurked inside a basement that had been sealed shut more than a decade previous. The door had been padlocked and the room forgotten about with the death of a small chunk of coral from another universe.

With a careful touch of her fingers against the door to provide her some stability, Rose looked up at the rusted out lock that held closed a thin strip of metal that latched across the door and its frame. She lifted her hand and flicked at the lock with her finger. It was as untouched and rusted as it had ever been. There were no new marking on it to indicate that it had been opened in recent weeks of months.

Perhaps this was a void in Vale's surveillance that she could somehow exploit? If he hadn't been in this room, then it was still in the same condition it was when he sealed it after the death of his baby TARDIS. He wouldn't have set this area up in his matrix of surveillance.

She gnawed at her thumbnail and weighed her options.

She could easily use her tablet to sneak into the monitoring network and provide some convincing loop-feeds that would have him _think_ that she was padding aimlessly around their home, or even sleeping the day away in a drug-filled stupor … she still had some anti-depressants that she had been given after Jamie's loss hidden somewhere that she could _pretend_ to take.

The tip of her tongue swept along the seam of her lips as she considered the appropriate programming and hacking techniques that would allow her to do that. She could then use whatever time she had to recreate that damn Dimension Canon and leap across the universal walls to find some help to take down whatever forces were working against her husband…

…and maybe get him back?

Her eyes dropped to the floor with that thought. Even if she was able to conquer the demon that had taken over John and he came back to her … would she even want him back? Could she ever trust him enough to bring _them_ back?

She didn't want to consider it. Not yet. Not now.

But she did want to stop this monster, regardless of what the eventual outcome would be. She lifted her eyes to the latch and let herself smile and maybe even find just the smallest amount of hope that not all was lost and that she wasn't condemned to a life as a prisoner to an obsessed madman without a box.

With renewed vigour, Rose Tyler pulled herself to her feet. She tapped the rusted out lock and winked at it. "I'll be back," she vowed softly.

~~oooOOOooo~~

It took an embarrassingly short amount of time for Rose Tyler to access the monitoring signal feeding out of her home from her tablet. It took even less time to piggyback an old program created by Mickey that would creatively overwrite live images with older footage looped via a bypass feedback protocol into the live stream back at the monitoring station.

She wanted to cheer at the ease and flawlessness in which she was able to accomplish it all. Twenty years as an active agent at Torchwood afforded her skills and knowledge that she knew she'd never forget. In her opinion that was the best retirement package ever …

Once confident that her reprogramming had been successful, Rose returned to the basement door with a dirty old yale key in hand and a crowbar underneath her arm. A crowbar that she hoped she wouldn't have to use. The last thing she needed was for Vale to figure out what she was up to because of the crowbar-sized dents in the door and frame and then shredded screw holes where the fastenings of the latch used to be.

With a purse in her lips and a hopeful expression on her face, Rose slid a shaking key into a rusted old lock. She winced at the resistance that met the key, but pushed through it, and bit at her lips when she finally sheathed it to its hilt.

"Here goes nothing," she sighed quietly to herself as she flexed her thumb and finger to twist the key in the lock.

It wouldn't budge.

She almost whimpered in disappointment to find that the lock had seized through age and disuse, but refused to give up on it. She held that lock firmer, and pushed harder at the key to will it to turn. She jiggled it. She withdrew and shoved it back in to try again. She grunted out a growl as she focused on a single turn rather than continue to jiggle it.

"Come on. Please. You can do it," she urged the little key. "You own that lock, mate. You tell it to open for you!"

With a click and a crackle, the lock finally gave way. It was still very stiff in the turn, but finally the tumblers fell into place against the key and the shackle finally popped upward. It was a snap sound that was music to Rose Tyler's ears, and she practically sang as she released the key and turned the shank to pull it from the latch.

"To whatever God is watching over me," she vowed softly as she pulled open the latch and twisted the tarnished metal door handle. "Thank you."

The door opened slowly and gave some definite protest with a heavy screeching cry of the rusted hinges scraping metal over metal. She winced at the sound, but strode ahead anyway into the darkened room beyond the door. Immediately she coughed at the thick dust that swirled up from her feet. With a wave of one hand in front of her face and the other swatting at the wall in search of the switch, Rose carefully made her way down the first to steps that would take her down into the unfinished basement below.

Her hand finally met with a switch panel that shifted underneath her touch. She stopped her stride and looked toward it as her fingers blindly found the tiny little lever that would either switch on the light or electrocute her. Either/or. Fortunately it sent its power toward a naked incandescent bulb that swung from a two-foot long cord that hung from the ceiling in the centre of the room, and not through the tips of her fingers.

The sudden illumination in the room highlighted the swirling dusts in the air and as though the very image of it heightened the choking power of dust, Rose started to cough against it. Her wracking coughs destabilized her enough that she ended up running down the remaining stairs to prevent gracelessly tumbling down them. She spun to evade an up-ended chair on the ground, but still managed to collide with the very edge of John's old workbench at the edge of the room.

She cursed and rubbed the flat of her hand against the sting of an oncoming bruise on her hips, hissing breaths though her teeth as she tried to work out the pain and work to reacquainting herself with the basement and all that it held within it.

To the right of the room – of the stairs – was John's former workshop table. It was bordered along the wall with small storage tubs that were filled with an array of screws, nails, washers, bolts, nuts, wires, glues and soldering irons. Several half-completed circuit boards that were once intended to become part of a TARDIS console were piled to one side of the desk, and schematic diagrams took up most of the other side of the desk. By the haphazard and splayed array of papers, Rose could tell that he'd swiped his hand across the desk in frustration when the coral cutting finally gave up and died completely.

She walked toward the desk and crouched to pick up a piece of paper from the floor. A sad smile graced her face to see a child's doodle drawn over the top of designs for an absolute Tesseractulator. Jamie had been so young and so eager to play about around his father's ankles that he quite happily sat on a mat laid atop a dusty basement floor and scribbled crayon images over any piece of paper he could possibly get his hands on.

…And John loved it. Oh, how he'd crow with pride at the scribble on the page – regardless of how it ruined the original design – and then drop whatever he was doing to sit on the mat beside his child to join him in his scribbling.

Her hand flew to her mouth and she fought off tears. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply behind her hand as she gently set the drawing down onto the work table. That hand then joined the other, and she held at her mouth with both hands as she battled to keep her composure and take stock of the room at the same time.

Drafting Table. There was an old drafting table that Rose used from time to time when she engaged in creating artwork of her own. There weren't too many actual art supplies left, but if she felt so inclined, she'd be able to pick up the hobby again with what was here. Perhaps one day. She really did miss it.

Out of the corner of her eye, and against the wall in a nondescript manner that had it appear more as a distraction rather than something openly useful for her to rebuild a canon, stood a rickety old wooden cupboard. She frowned just slightly as she tried to remember when and where they had acquired that. It didn't quite seem to be within the tastes of either she nor John. Nothing came immediately to mind, so she merely shrugged her shoulder and turned to look around the rest of the dusty, smelly, damp old room that sat relatively abandoned underneath her home.

As she pottered around and poked her fingers into things here and there with a curious assessment to its worth toward her project, Rose couldn't help but occasionally notice a light buzzing against her mind. It felt as though she was being followed by a persistent mosquito, and more than once she blindly slapped at the air to rid herself of it. It only took thirty minutes of this for her to decide that her next venture down in this room would require mosquito coils or a can of Mosi-Guard to free the place of annoying insects.

The humming and buzzing intensified the deeper that she strode into the room, and before long, she found her expression falling into a grimace at the slowly rising ache that was again seeding itself in her head. She pressed the butts of both hands into her eyes and leaned forward into a stoop in an attempt to focus past the building ache. She still had roughly an hour and a half before she could take any more painkillers for her head.

"Oh for God's sake," she seethed under her breath as the humming intensified. "Get outta my head. I don't want you in there!"

The humming sound seemed to gasp itself free of her mind, and Rose felt a sudden encompassing feeling of utter distress. It made her choke out a dry sob and stumble against her drafting table. She shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself, spinning in the damp light of the room as though suddenly lost. All she found herself capable of doing at that very moment was to collapse into a desk chair and lean forward over her knees.

A sound quietly made its presence known in the room. Atop the light humming of the incandescent bulb above her head, Rose heard a light whine and wheeze and a metal on metal keening sound that she hadn't heard in over thirty years. Fear bloomed inside her chest as the sound intensified and the papers around her started to rattle and shift with a ghostly breeze that picked up and blew around her with no immediately identifiable point of origin.

She lifted her head, but kept her arms wrapped tightly around her belly as a flashing light caught her attention. Toward the wall, a grey metallic cylinder faded in and out of existence, each pulse of its materialization timing itself perfectly with the push and pull whine that was growing ever louder.

There was no mistaking that sound. It was the TARDIS.

Her breath flew in sharp and her eyes bloomed with hope as the thick metal cylinder finally finished its materialization and fully emerged against the far wall. She watched with tight brows as a thin beam of laser light – a scanner – traced the room and fixated on John's metal storage cupboard under the stairs. The exterior of the TARDIS flickered, shuddered, and then slowly morphed into an identical copy of the cupboard.

Then it was silent.

Rose sat forward just slightly in the chair. Her arms were still crossed tightly across her chest, and her expression was still one of shock and confusion. Had the Doctor finally fixed the Chameleon Circuit? She thought that he liked the look of the old girl. Why would he go and change it?

More importantly, why was he here? Had he somehow locked onto her signal when she had jumped only a day ago and managed to find his way across the walls?

She softly called out the name of the Time Lord that she expected was at the helm of the ship, and held her breath as the door creaked open.

A small, handheld, electrical gadget emerged through the doors first. Little red blinking lights with orange and green flickers in between flashes of red that rolled down between a small pair of twisting dish sensors attached to a black-cased box. It beeped a slow and steady pattern that seemed to indicate that all was well, and so a tuft of tousled dark hair emerged from beyond the doors. The pilot's shoulder emerged next, but he didn't curl himself around the door as Rose expected him to. Instead, he pressed his shoulder up against the door's edge to lean his tall and firm body against the doorframe. His eyes were focused on the gadget in his hand and he set one hand on his hip and crossed his legs at the ankle in what seemed to be curious confusion at the readings on his gadget.

Rose cleared her throat into her hand loud enough to ensure that she'd be heard. She kept her eyes on the man lingering in the doorway of the TARDIS with wide and hopeful eyes that he'd recognize her.

He looked up from the device in his hand with high brows and a slightly startled expression on his face. His wide blue eyes softened and a smile bloomed across his face when he caught sight of her. He pulled from the doorway and spoke to her in a series of melodic syllables that were enough to send shivers racing throughout her body even though she couldn't understand any part of it.

She shook her head at him. "Doctor. Is your translation circuit malfunctioning?"

He frowned at her and his head jerked just lightly as though as though unable to understand her. He shifted his head forward and spoke again, this time a little slower than the first time he'd spoken.

Rose had to chuckle and shook her head. "Doctor…" She looked into his face, into light crystal blue eyes rimmed with the darkest blue and found herself having to blink with surprise at the absolute lack of familiarity within them. "Don't you know who I am?"

Dark brows that matched the almost black head of hair rose high on his forehead. There was a moment of pause and then a sudden look of realization. He laughed a wide grin of brilliant white teeth and held a finger up to her as he turned back to the TARDIS doors. He spoke again, words that Rose assumed were the Gallifreyan equivalent of "Gimme a mo." And then disappeared inside the TARDIS.

He emerged only seconds later with his smile still firmly in place and both hands in his trouser pockets. Trousers, she noted, that were tucked into a calf-high pair of brown leather boots and were a deep green that matched hues perfectly with the two-toned long-sleeved tunic he wore over top.

If he sread out his arms and puffed up his chest, he would've kind've looked like a tree.

"So," he began with a sheepish smile and dip in his head. "How're we doing now? Can you understand me?"

Rose smiled and gave him a nod of her head. "Problem with the translation circuit?"

His smile fell and he tilted his head with curiosity at her. "Oh, not really. I didn't think to turn it on," he began with a gentle but somewhat wary tone of voice. "I was on a test flight and didn't expect to land off-planet."

Rose's mouth was slightly gaped as she nodded her head. "Ahh. I see. So you're not an adventurer yet, then?"

He studied her for a short moment with guarded eyes and a stiffened stance. His fists were clearly tight inside the pockets of his trousers.

"Doctor?"

His guarded eyes and his tight stance immediately relaxed. He smirked a one-sided smile of realization and shook his head. "No. Not him." He thumbed back toward his TARDIS. "He's still off gallivanting around the universe after rather successfully upsetting the entire political system on Gallifrey, which involved exiling the Lord President and the whole of council, and then took off leaving our entire planet in disarray."

She couldn't help but chuckle. "Sounds like him."

"You're a friend of his?"

She pressed her lips together and then shook her head. "No. Not as such. I'm an old acquaintance." She held out her hand to him. "I'm Rose. Rose Tyler."

He looked down at her hand with a curious expression on his face. "Ahhh," he breathed as he recalled his study of Alien cultures at the Academy. A smile blossomed and he slapped her hand to give her a side swiping high-five. "Trappullekestrupipusikontam," he returned eagerly. "Pleasure to meet you, Rose Tyler."

"Trappul-ah-what?" she queried with embarrassment.

He grinned a cheeky smile and leaned down to her. "You can call me Trapp. Most people do." He straightened up and looked around the room with a light frown on his face. "A good and strong Gallifreyan moniker is a fine thing," He looked back to her and gave a wink. "But no one can ever really remember it in its entirety to correctly pronounce them. We shorten them to the first syllable more often than not."

"I'd imagine so," she cooed with a smile. "Roll-call at school must be something else, yeah?"

"Takes half the academic day," he shot back with obvious amusement. "My name's pretty short by comparison to some of my fellow cadets. I had one cadet friend – my best friend actually – who I spent an entire century studying with at the academy. And you know what? To this day I can't tell you his full name." He wandered the room a little. "We called him Ian. He was Iandutavuntespithnoke ….something or other."

She chuckled into her hand and straightened up a little on the chair. She smoothed out the messy pull of her hair with a swipe of her hand and slowly drew herself to a stand. "So did he send you here then?"

He hummed in question but didn't look at her. His attentions were definitely on the various pieces of furniture around the room.

"The Doctor," she clarified. "Did he send you here?"

His brows were high as his head twisted quickly to look at her. "Pardon me? The _Doctor_? Did he _send_ me here?" He shook his head. "No. Course not. I've never met him."

She exhaled a disappointed breath. "Oh."

"We run in different circles, him and me," Trapp continued. "Different chapters, you see. Different Academies, different ideals." He looked at her. "He's Prydonian, I believe. I'm from the Arcalian Chapter." One side of his face lifted into a wince of consideration. "And even if the Chapters did tend to mingle, don't believe I'd ever have the privilege." He tipped his head to one side to regard her curiously. "Why? Are you expecting him?"

Rose shook her head with quick and short movements. "No. Not really. I just figured that. Well. Maybe…"

"You need him?" he asked softly. "I'm sure I can issue out a call for him. Might take a while, I'm afraid, but I can try."

"Oh no," she answered on a rushed breath. "No need. None at all. Probably best that we don't let him know I even asked about him, yeah? Just leave him to gallivant across time and space like always."

His face lengthened with unshielded disbelief in her aver about not wanting the presence of the Time Lord Doctor. "Right. Okay. No problem at all."

She awkwardly hooked her hair behind her ear and blew at some stray strands that hung down over her face. "So. So what brings a Time Lord of Gallifrey all the way across to my side of a parallel wall, anyway?" She held her hand at her ear as though in preparation to curl yet another lock of hair around it. "I thought there weren't anymore of you people left in the universe."

"Time War," he queried with a side-long glance.

Rose nodded. "He said you were all gone."

Trapp shook his head and gave her a smile. "He saved us," he said with pride and awe in his voice. "That crazy madman in a box found a way to save us from the brink of destruction. I wasn't loomed at that point in time, mind you. But from the texts it was said that in the blink of an eye all the Daleks were gone and Gallifrey was at peace again. We've been rebuilding for centuries."

"I'm so glad to hear that."

"Me too," he admitted with a wink. He then went back to investigating the contents of the room. "Where are you?" he murmered quietly to himself.

Rose leaned to one side in curiosity at him looking through the room and muttering quietly to himself. He was quite obviously looking for something, but she wasn't quite sure just what. Something had brought him here. She needed to know just what that was.

"So, Trapp," she began curiously. She held onto her question until he turned to look at her. "What brings you here?"

"Oh yes," he chirped. "You did ask that earlier, didn't you?"

"I did."

He pointed to the left side of his chest, where he wore a name tag that indicated his name inside a series of circles, lines, dots and swirls. "I'm head of the hyperloom facility and Dry Dimension Dockyard Cradles operations."

"Oh-Kay," she breathed out in prompting for more information. "And?"

He smirked. "I'm a specialist in the cultivation, birthing, cloning, repair, maintenance, and engineering of the Pundeharhiran species." He gave her a wink. "Otherwise referred to as TT Capsule or – in the Doctor's case - a TARDIS."

"You…?"

He nodded. "Yes. I am the equivalent of a Time Lord foster father to thousands of very cheeky, playful, mischevious, and incredibly loyal Pundeharhirans." He inhaled a deep breath and resumed looking around the room. "That means that when a capsule is in distress I will typically intercept the call and see what kind of assistance is needed to get them back to Gallifrey for repair, nurturing, and rehabilitation." He walked to the edge of the room, where a rickety wooden cupboard stood against the wall. He tipped his head to one side and ran his hand down the rough wooden exterior. "I received a distress call from a very young Pundeharhiran that led me here."

"You're a little late then," Rose said sadly. "She died, Trapp. We lost our precious piece of coral more than a decade ago. I'm sorry this was a wasted trip for you."

He shook his head slowly and stroked tenderly at the cupboard. "Oh no she didn't," he corrected her softly. "You didn't die, did you, sweetheart? You just needed some time alone to grow properly, didn't you? Time away from a meddling and insistent Time Lord who doesn't know what he's doing trying to make you grow too fast." He closed his eyes and lowered his head. "But it's okay. I'm here now. Tell me what's wrong with you, little one. Let me help you."

A hard breath flew through Rose's lips. "Are you saying that that _cupboard_ …?"

He opened his eyes and turned his head to look down his shoulder at her. There was a smile on his face when he answered her. "This perfect little lady is a juvenile Pundeharhiran." His grin widened. "Or as you know it, a TARDIS. _Yours._ "


	9. Growing a TARDIS

A/N: Another big chapter ... sorry it's so long winded...

BUT! This is a fairly light hearted chapter. Quite light hearted in fact. I needed some levity, I really did. So I played about with Trapp's character a bit to not only get a better feel for him, but to lighten Rose up for a little while. I think she needs some cheering up and laughter...

I am taking some serious artistic license with the whole growing of TARDIS things ... I'm really just making that stuff up as I go and creating a whole new ideal that I'm kind've getting a kick out of. Sorry if it doesn't fit your ideas of it ... I like the thought of them having their own independent personalities and cheeky playfulness about them. The Doctor's TARDIS seems to have her moments ... why not all of them, yeah?

Anyway... hope you enjoy. Am hitting the campground this weekend, so no new chapters till Monday.

~~oooOOOooo~~

"This perfect little lady is a juvenile Pundeharhiran," Trapp said with a smile on his face that matched the smile in his voice. "Or as you know it, a TARDIS." His smile brightened and he gave her a look of warmth that held the smallest bit of pride to it. " _Yours_."

Rose's expression of curiosity fell to one of absolute shock and disbelief. "A T-TARDIS?" she queried with a quiet stammer. Her eyes shifted to the white wooden walls of the small cupboard. "As in a ship capable of flying through time and space?"

His eyes lifted and his cheeks crinkled just slightly as he tipped his head side to side. "Yes. And no." He straightened his expression and turned to face her directly. He didn't move from the doors of the ship, and seemed to not want to take his hand from her exterior.

"She's only a youngster right now," he lectured gently. "Just a baby. She's got a long way to go, and a lot of mechanics to be installed before she'll be capable of travelling throughout the universe."

Rose inhaled deeply; it was a sound of disappointment. "I see."

"They aren't born with the ability to time travel," he continued with a smile. "That's merely the gift that we Time Lords give them as part of our symbiotic relationship with them." His lips pursed at that idea. "Well. If you could call it a _gift_. Some might argue about the exploitative nature of turning a temporal and sentient species into our own personal travel machines." He chuckled. "And trust me, there have been far more than a few protest marches through the capitol by activists crying out about cruelty to Pundeharhirans."

She smiled wryly. "Really? They do that even on _Gallifrey_?"

Trapp thumbed at his nose with an expression of annoyance. "Yeah. I've seen my share of nasty protests and had far more eggs than necessary thrown at me for being an _enabler of the cruelty_."

Rose's face widened to surprise as she imagined Gallifreyan streets being overrun with chanting protestors carrying placards with images of the Police Box TARDIS covered with a giant red no entry sign. She had to wonder if Gallifrey's version of the great unwashed masses that made up the bulk of the activist scenes were as pierced, tattooed, unshaven, dread or multicoloured haired and militant as the ones on Earth.

"They didn't hurt you, though, did they?"

He seemed slightly startled by her question, but shook his head with a smile. "Oh no. Not at all. Nothing more than my pride. For all of their caterwauling, they do understand that I am one of the few who does truly nurture and protect the Pundeharhirans." He ran his hand along the wooden door of the baby TARDIS and lifted his head to look up to her top. "We don't outfit any cradling who doesn't want to be fitted."

"And that happens?"

He nodded and shrugged lightly. "Not too often, but we do experience occasions where the Pundeharhiran rejects any attempt at modification. Some of them want to remain as elders to the younglings, some wish to be mothers. Some of them even form pairing bonds and refuse to leave each other. " He looked back to her with a soft expression on his face. "We have special nurseries for the bonded pairs. There's no way we'll separate them."

"That sounds quite beautiful," Rose admitted wistfully. "Love between machines. It's hard to imagine."

"Nah," he drawled with a wink in his eye. Then he took on a contemplative expression. "Well, not to those of us who work in the nurseries and looming cradles anyway. That isn't to say that it's a frequent occurence, though, Rose. Male Pundeharhirans are very few and far between, and in a lot of cases we make sure that they're separated from the females." He winced with an expression of absolute embarrassed distaste. "Because if you get a particularly randy one near a harem …" He shuddered. "Put it this way: there's a lot of clean up involved.."

Rose had to laugh. There were several images that immediately came to mind; none of which she was willing to share with him. The more visions her mind supplied the more she pealed with laughter.

"It's not funny," he whined pathetically. "Do you have any idea just how sticky and smelly and just plain disgusting a Pundeharhiran spore release is?" He slumped backward in a dramatic gesture and moaned. "And there's _so_ much of it." He then flicked his finger in the air as though trying to shake off something filthy. "And if you get it on you, Rose, there is no way you can quickly free yourself of it without destroying whatever dignity you have – and I'm a Time Lord, I have plenty of dignity that I _have_ to keep intact – oh, and don't dare complain about the ick of it all lest those pretentious Drama Queens throw a fit…"

Rose was quite obviously amused. "The images I have in mind right now…"

"Are probably quite accurate," he shot in quickly. "Disgusting mating process I can tell you." He shuddered again and actually rubbed at himself as though trying to rid himself of the stuff. "You know. I'm fairly certain that many aspects of interpretive dance were developed by Hyperloom workers who unwittingly walked face first into a wash of Pundeharhiran spore."

Rose's whole face contorted into an expression of brilliant amusement and she pealed out a sound of laughter so loud and melodical that it took him into glee right along with her. His face lit up with laughter so hearty that he had to lean forward and hold onto his belly to maintain his stand.

It was a good couple of minutes before either of them could calm themselves into a decent composure, and they both calmed themselves down with deep breaths and thick swallows.

She still had some residual giggle in her throat when she tried to speak again, and so her voice was slightly crackled. "So those that don't end up covered in sticky TARDIS sperm?"

"Spore," he corrected with a crinkle of distaste across his face. "Whilst both substances are equally revolting in their own unique ways, male Pundeharhiran release spores, not sperm…"

"Is there really a difference?"

"Quite a big difference, in fact." His face contorted completely in disgust. "But really. Can we please change the topic of conversation? There's quite a long emotional recovery period required after an event like that, and I'm still only a decade past the last one."

Rose had to laugh again. "And you call the TARDIS _Drama Queens_."

He lifted an indignant brow. "Have you ever seen a Pundeharhiran tantrum, my dear Rose?" He watched her shake her head with a smile. "No, I didn't think so." He pointed a finger of warning at her. "And pray to your deity that you never do."

"If you had the choice," she teased with a cheeky grin. "Between…."

"Oh can we get on with it," Trapp said with a moan. "We have an ailing Pundeharhiran to attend to. Questions of what is the better choice between." He winced and shrugged. " That isn't even a choice. One doesn't _choose_ to partake in any one of those events. They just happen."

"But if you _had_ to choose," she pressed with a bump at his shoulder with hers.

He looked down at her with an arched brow. "I'd regenerate," he answered tonelessly. "Over and over again." He extended his hand toward the baby TARDIS. "Now, if you will. Your little one needs you."

"Me?" She looked toward the silent little cupboard. "Why would the TARDIS need me? I don't know anything about growing a TARDIS."

"Pendralambelle," he corrected gently. "And she seems to feel quite differently about your ability to care and nurture."

"Pendra-what?" she asked incredulously.

"Pendralambelle," he repeated with a smile. He noted the drop in Rose's brow that indicated confusion and continued with a flirtatious arch in his brow. "That's her name."

"Her name?"

He hummed in the affirmative and rocked lightly on his heels as his hands slid inside his pockets. "Pretty name for a pretty girl."

Rose couldn't help but grin at his playfulness. In response her voice fell to a tone of teasing. "Is that _really_ her name?"

"It is."

She tipped her head at him and narrowed her eyes with suspicion. "Like her _actual_ name, not one you just chose to give her?"

His face lengthened with absolute innocence. He could read the accusation in her gaze. "Oh. No. That's _actually_ her name. Her honest-to-goodness-I-vow-that-I-didn't-make-it-up name."

"And how do you know that?" she teased with a chuckle.

"Simple," he answered with a pet at the door and indignance in his voice. "Because she told me. Didn't you, Pendra? May I call you Pendra, Sweetheart?"

"And you _speak_ TARDIS … right?"

"Pundeharhiran," he corrected victoriously. "And yes. I do. As I am the adopted father of over a thousand of them right now it helps to be able to connect with the cheeky little events of time and space that multiply all around me." He looked back over his shoulder to his ship. "Especially when you have a rambunctious and petulant little adolescent on your hands like the one parked behind me." He blinked at it. "Don't you go thinking I haven't heard you complaining in my head, Tedendugalia. I'm not deaf; I'm just not listening to you right now."

Rose chuckled into her curled fingers.

Trapp leaned down to talk quietly against her ear. "He is the king of the drama queens, that one. Always wanting attention. So let's make him happy, shall we?" He then leaned back up and thumbed over his shoulder. "Teden back there is an 89B-Mark II Prototype capsule. Only one of his kind. His drive and guidance systems are based on the original Acalian design put together by Lord Verostephocalen, but we had to eliminate most of the original temporally disastrous design protocols. We relocated the placement of his time vector generator to a less conspicuous area of the command room, and the telepathic circuits that give his pilot a stable reality quotient when he's messing about with…. "

"Trapp?"

The tone of voice she used to call his name suggested to the Time Lord that it wasn't the first time she'd tried to get his attention. He stopped talking with a sharp inhale and looked toward Rose with a curious expression. "Sorry. Yes?"

"You're speaking Gallifreyan," she admitted with a light chuckle.

His expression fell into one of apology. "Oh dear. Have the translation circuits failed?" He turned quickly. "Not that you can understand me, now, but please accept my sincerest apologies. Give me a moment to go look into that…"

"No," she said with a peel of laughter. "I mean. That kind've tech speak is over my head. It sounds like a completely different language to me. Believe me, Trapp. You're translating fine."

He blew out a breath of relief. "Well. That's _good_ to hear." He shot a look toward his machine. "He can be a bit of a prankster when he's not getting his way. Despite all my efforts to stabilise his systems, his sentience does outwit the protocols from time to time – usually at the most inopportune times."

"I bet you wouldn't have him any other way, though," she offered softly in a voice filled with admiration for man and machine.

He grinned and shook his head. "Absolutely not, Rose. Absolutely not. The best partnerships are formed between peoples who have an equal say in the relationship." He lifted his eyes to the ceiling and let out a long breath. "If only I could convince half of the Time Lords who fly inside the capsules of that – we'd have far less machines sitting in my dry docks with work orders on them."

"Keeps you busy, then."

"You have no idea," he replied breathily. He then petted the doorway of the young TARDIS and offered Rose his other hand. "Now, that all said. I'm here for a reason. Let's you and me work on easing the distress of this beautiful young lady that called me here for help."

Rose quickly moved toward him with such swift movements that she appeared to glide across the dusty concrete floor. Her hands held at her chin and her shoulders were raised hopefully as she took a position close enough to Trapp that their shoulders touched. With a look of question toward the Time Lord, Rose sought permission to reach out and touch the cupboard in front of her.

"Go ahead," he advised her gently. He gestured toward the TARDIS with a small shift of his chin. "She needs you more than she does me right now."

She pulled one hand out from under her chin and tentatively reached out to touch the wooden door. She hesitated and let her fingers hover just shy of the wood. "Do you know what's wrong with her?"

"I do," he replied quickly. He swallowed and seemed to speak around a lump in his throat when he continued. "Easy fix, really. She's looking for a symbiotic link to her pilot." He gently took hold of Rose's wrist and guided her movements to press her palm against the wood. His voice was tender, gentle, and full of warmth. "She's reaching out, Rose, but she's being rejected. It's putting her in distress."

Rose closed her eyes and smiled as she felt the gentle hum of the TARDIS under her hand. "Oh, Sweetheart," she cooed with the same gentleness shown by Trapp. "I'm so sorry. You're looking for John, aren't you?" She lightly stroked the door. "You've been reaching out to him and he's been ignoring you. He thought you'd died. He came in and you were black and all shrivelled up. He gave up. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She pressed her forehead against the door and let out a shaking breath. "He'll be home soon, and I'll tell him about you. I'll tell him and you can find your link with him."

 _No_.

The word was whispered softly against her ear and made Rose open her eyes and turn her head to look up at Trapp, who remained standing tall like a sentinel at her side. "What was that, Trapp?"

He inhaled sharply as though caught off guard and gave himself a light shake. "Sorry, Rose?"

"You said no. In my ear," she answered him cautiously. "Just now."

He shook his head. "No. I didn't." His face crinkled along one side with a half smile that curled only one side of his lips. "You were connecting with her. It would be very rude of me to interrupt something as intimate as that."

"But I heard it," she blustered out breathily. She pointed to the side of her head. "You said _No_ in my ear when I told her we would wait for John."

He pursed his lips and nodded slowly. "In your _left_ ear, right?"

She nodded frantically. "Yes. That's right." She pointed to it. "Right here."

"I'm standing on your right, Rose." It was obvious he was trying hard not to sound condescending when he said that, but it was impossible to execute a reminder like that without doing so, so he shrugged and apologetic rise of his shoulders. "I can't throw my voice like that. Sorry."

Her face fell and her fingers shifted a little against the wood. "Then who?"

He slid his hands into his trouser pockets and slapped lightly against his thighs. "I'd wager that it was Pendralambelle who was talking to you." He removed one hand from his pocket to scratch at the back of his head and then tug at the top his ear. "If and when a Pundeharhiran vocalises – which isn't often, mind – it's generally heard in the left ear." He tapped at his. "To be perfectly honest with you, I'm not quite sure why that is. I think it has something to do with the specific telepathic receptors required for the symbiotic link with…"

Rose snatched her hand away from the wooden exterior of the TARDIS and backed off at least a full stride away from it. "Hold on, What?"

His eyes shot wide, but only for a moment before they crinkled in pain. "Rose. Go back to her, please?"

"Are you tellin' me she was in my head, Trapp?"

He raised his hand to press the base of his palm against his eye. He nodded shortly with a wince on his face. "Yeah. She was. And now she's in mine. Wailing. Rose, please go back to her. She's crying inside my mind and it hurts."

Rose held both hands up in front of her and stepped backward even further away from them both. "No," she panted out vehemently. "No more. I don't want anyone in my head. Not again. Not anymore."

Trapp's face was set in a wince down along the right side of his face. He was in a side lean of discomfort when reached out a hand to Rose in a request for her to come back. "Rose. It's okay. There's nothing to be afraid of. You'll barely know she's there."

Rose slapped at his hand when his fingers brushed her arm. "I said _no_ ," she growled heatedly. "I _don't_ consent."

The expression on his face was a mix of pain and confusion. "Rose…"

"Are you gonna force it too?" she charged out hotly. She lifted her hands to her temples and pressed her fingers tightly against them. "Are you going to ignore the stupid little ape and force your way into my head regardless of me sayin' no?"

Trapp's expression shifted to utter annoyance. He straightened himself to full height that – Rose noted with a hard swallow – could rival the stature of the Doctor, and loomed high over her.

"One," he began darkly. "Never call yourself a stupid little ape. It's a foul insult and is not what you are – it's certainly not what I see when I look at you, anyway." He sniffed with a crinkle in his lip. "Two. Accusing a Time Lord of the intent to assault and force himself into your mind represents the single most heinous act that any Gallifreyan can commit." He stepped closer to her and kept his glare dark. "It's something so expressly forbidden on my planet – and across more than a thousand other solar systems – that it isn't even a consideration even by those who have truly evil intentions."

Rose swallowed thickly and inhaled a panicked breath as he took another looming step toward her. Fury, it seemed, was not a trait held only by the Doctor. It seemed that any of his people were capable of the Oncoming Storm behaviour.

"That said," he growled when he finally stood quite close to chest to chest with her. His glare softened to concern. His voice softened as well. "Three. The infliction inside your fearful accusation tells me that you have suffered a mental intrusion assault before.."

Rose gulped, but she didn't readily give anything away.

He stared into her eyes for a long moment. Searching. She could tell that he was searching for something.

Finally, he blinked long lashes over his intense blue eyes and lowered his head. "And quite recently if the slightly glazed and reddened surface of your eyes are any indication."

"It's probably the effect of the pain medication I took earlier that you're seeing," she tried with a weak smile.

His voice was quiet. "Pain for what?"

"Migraine," she answered quickly. She rolled her shoulder in a slightly nonchalant gesture. "Woke up with one this morning. I took a couple of pills that my husband left for me." Her brows tightened. "Not quite sure what they were, if I'm to be honest with you. But they seemed to do the trick, I guess. I've still got a little ache, but the bulk of it's gone."

He nodded slowly. "I see." His voice was barely above a whisper.

"How about we focus on little Pendra, yeah?"

"It appears," he began in a whisper. He inhaled and lifted his head again to give her a weak smile. "That the little one isn't the only one who needs help."

"Really, I'm fine," Rose assured him quickly. Very quickly. Far too fast for the statement to be believed.

"Is it your husband?" At the shocked lift in her brow, he gestured toward her hand. "You're wearing a weddingband typical in the customs of the people of Sol III."

"It's fine. Really," she managed with a smile and a nervous shake of her head. "Nothing wrong with me and Vale. We're fine. Truly. Truly fine." She used both hands to point toward the baby TARDIS. "Now little Pendra on the other hand. She needs you."

He merely hummed a sound of noncommittal.

"Trapp," she called softly as she stepped a half stride closer to him and pressed her hand against his chest. She blinked her eyes slowly at the feel of the double-thump of two hearts beneath her fingertips and let out a breath at the comfort that sensation seemed to give her. "Please believe me."

He brought his hand up to lay it against her hand to push it flush with the breast of his Green tunic. "I can help you," he vowed softly. "I can take you from here. I can have him arrested. I can make sure that he'll never go into your head like that again."

She wriggled her hand underneath his and was surprised when the pressure of his touch increased to hold it in place. With a breath she lifted her head to look into his face. Up this close, she could see the way that his dark brows and lashes perfectly framed his crystal blue eyes to give him the most haunting beauty even in the most intense of glares.

"How could you be so eager to help me out of anything," she queried softly, "when you know absolutely nothing about me? For all you know I could be the single most evil person in the entire multiverse."

That made him open his mouth to let out a breathy laugh. He tapped at her hand and then let her go. "You have a baby Pundeharhiran who is out of her home element, yet is absolutely thriving. She also explicitly trusts you and has chosen you as her symbiotic bond mate." He winked and stepped back from her. "I'd say that makes you pretty alright in my book."

"Maybe she just likes me because she has no one else."

The look that crossed his face was almost indescribable. It was a mesh of shock, horror, disbelief, anger and genuine worry. "What has happened to you to make you believe anything like that about yourself?" His head tipped to one side and he regarded her with a soft expression of consideration. "What, Rose?"

She gestured toward the baby TARDIS. "Stop with the digressing you're doing, Trapp, and fix Pendra, will you?"

"To some degree I think I am," he murmured quietly.

"You said she's looking for a bond, yeah?" Talking business was a great way to change her focus off the more depressing matters. She took hold of that option and strolled up to Pendra with determination. She looked back at the green-suited Time Lord with brows of impatience high on her forehead. "Well? Come on Mr. Specialist in the Pundeharhirans. Let's see what will make this little one stop crying in your mind."

He let out a breath and nodded. "The more obvious solution not being an option," he gravelled hoarsely to himself as he shifted to stand at Rose's side.

Rose either didn't hear him, or she ignored the comment completely. "So she needs a bond mate?" She turned her head to look at Trapp looming at her side. "Any chance you can get her back to Gallifrey and find her a worthy Lord or Lady of time to bond with her?"

With almost indistinguishable movements, he shook his head. "She's cradled herself here for the moment," he began on a lecture. "Which means moving her might do her far more harm than good. Of course I say _might_ , when I really should clarify that it could likely kill her to move her at this stage. It's not a guaranteed death, mind. It's possible that we could transport her safely back to Gallifrey and cradle her in one of the Dry-Dock cradles and she'd be perfectly fine."

"So is that a yes or a no?"

"She has to _want_ to leave, though," he finished with a slide of his eyes toward Rose. "If she doesn't, then moving her will be impossible."

"And I suppose this is where you tell me that she doesn't want to leave, right?"

The very edge of his lip turned up into a smile. "You're a natural Punderharhiran mother, you know that?"

"Shut up."

"I'm a Time Lord, and that's impossible," he stated cheekily.

"Don't I know it," she breathed with mock suffering in both her voice and posture. She quickly straightened. "I know nothing about building or growing a TARDIS, nor do I have any clue about building their internal circuitry and mechanics."

He them rubbed thoughtfully at his chin. He hummed a moment in thought, and then let out a breath and even a smile. "If you're okay with me adding her to the registry back on Gallifrey, then I can assign myself as her official engineer and mechanic. It'll give me clearance to drop by here and there to make sure she's doing well. It'll also make the Lord Council happy to know that a wild Pundeharhiran is being adequately monitored."

He pursed his lips to absently suck at the air like he was issuing little kisses to it. "I'll need to get some information on her origins, of course, and just what techniques were used in growing her to this point so that I don't make any detrimental errors in her block transfer mathematical equations when connecting her to the eye of Harmony." He twisted his head to look at Rose. All softness and playfulness was now absent – here was a Time Lord getting down to business.

"Was she seeded or grown from a cutting?"

Rose's eyes widened. "Oh, she was given to us by the Doctor – a chunk off his TARDIS I assume."

Trapp's eyes widened, as did his mouth. He pointed toward the little cupboard. "Pendra is a cutting from the Doctor's Type 40?"

"I take it that's good?"

"Oh," he practically purred as his attention went back to the TARDIS. "Getting a cutting from _his_ Capsule is like one of those unattainable bucket list dreams of a dying person. Except we're taking about living people. Time Lords. Hyperloom technicians specifically." He looked back to Rose. "You must've been more than just an acquaintance of the Doctor if you were given a piece of her." He smiled and spoke almost reverently. "His capsule must've really loved you."

Rose swallowed hard. "We got along okay, I suppose."

His brows pinched for a moment, but he seemed to shake it off quickly enough. "Right. So she's a cutting off the Type 40. I can go through the registry and see if we have any information of that particular looming and see if it can't give me any information on how best to work with little Pendra here to make her as strong as she can possibly be." He licked at his lip. "Probably wouldn't hurt to reach out to the Lord Doctor and see if he has some insight, or if he might bring in his old girl …"

"Best not," Rose breathed quickly.

"Pardon me?"

"Let's leave the Doctor out of this, yeah?" She didn't take her eyes off the TARDIS and so didn't look at Trapp when she spoke. "No sense in bothering him. It's a bit out of his scope of interest and all."

He was aghast. "What? A Time Lord not being interested in his faithful ship? You jest, Rose Tyler. Surely you jest."

Rose tipped her head toward the table behind them. "You can take all of that if you like. Those were the plans and designs that John had drawn up before we thought she'd up and died on us. I'm sure it has everything that you'll need to know without you ever having to contact the Doctor."

"But if I need to know specifics…"

"Don't," Rose shot harshly. "I don't want him showin' up here. D'you understand." She pointed again at the papers. "Everything you need to know is there. All of it. Everything that the Doctor could've possibly known about his TARDIS and how to grow a new one is all there. All of it. If it's not in there, then the Doctor doesn't know."

"You sound so sure of that," he said quietly.

"I am."

Trap walked over to the work bench and slowly swiped up the papers to straighten them up and pile them together. He seemed just the slightest bit put out as he tucked the pile underneath his arm and walked back toward her. "I'll go through this information over the next couple of days, get a few things sorted out on Gallifrey and come back with a few things I think you'll need to continue to sustain her over the next little while until we can move her into the next phase of her development."

"Does?" She swallowed uncomfortable. "Does that mean you're leaving?"

He smiled widely at that, and at the disappointment she conveyed in her tone. "You sound like you want me to stay."

Rose blinked rapidly and cleared her throat. She shook her head and gestured toward Pendra. "She. She needs you, yeah? You said she's distressed, but you haven't really done anything to make her better."

"True," he breathed through pursed lips. "I can bridge a temporary link between she and I for the moment until we find her a new pilot…" He winced suddenly and lifted a hand to clutch a fistful of hair beside his left temple. "Or not," he managed in a strangled tone. "Got it, Pendralabelle. Point given with piercing accuracy there, thank you." He looked toward Rose though only one eye. "She's kind've set on you being her symbiotic link mate."

Her face fell. "Oh."

"She's willing to wait."

"I see."

She shook himself free of what must've been quite a telepathic rant, and straightened himself up. "I do encourage you to think it over, Rose. Really I do."

She shook her head and winced with the thought. "I can't, Trapp. Not not. Not right now."

"She won't ever hurt you," he assured her gently. " I promise you that. You don't have to fear a connection with a Pundeharhiran. If anything, she'll protect your mind – ease your pains." He smiled. "You know that no Time Lord who has his or her own Capsule ever suffers from headaches." He winked. "Worth considering?"

Rose showed no amusement at all. She stared at the little cupboard with focused eyes. "If she's in my head, he'll see her. He'll find her." She swallowed. "I don't know if I can let that happen."

Trapp stepped in close to her, dipping his head to look with curious concern into the side profile of her face, where he could see that she was grinding at her jaw. "Are you in danger, Rose?"

"Not as such," she answered quietly without taking her eyes off the TARDIS. "He'll never hurt me. At least not like that."

"But he'll rape your mind," Trapp seethed quietly.

She remained silent, simply looking toward the cupboard with unblinking eyes and an open mouth. After a very long moment her mouth snapped shut and she shook herself free of her thoughts. She turned toward Trapp and held out her hand to him as her face broke out into the single most brilliant grin that he'd ever seen in his two incarnations.

"It's been a pleasure to meet you," she sang to him. "And I'm looking forward to seeing you and Teden again."

His brow lifted high and he curled a lip as he tipped his head toward his own capsule. "Really? You want _him_ to come back with me?"

"Well," she said with a shrug of her shoulder up close to her ear. "He and Pendra seem to get on well enough?" She heard Trapp hum in question and pointed toward the two small cupboards. "Well in the time that you and I've been talking they've moved closer to each other. So if she likes him, then…"

"Oh," trap growled with a wag of his finger toward his TARDIS. "I don't think so. Nuh-uh." He strode quickly toward his own machine with a shake in his head. "She's a _baby_ , Teden. A precious little youngling that needs some support and nurturing, not unwanted advances from a prowling adolescent."

Rose found herself in laughter at the stern admonishing that Trapp was handing out to his machine. The image of a grown man reading the riot act to an aluminum work cabinet that was just sitting quietly on the basement floor was absolutely priceless in her mind…

..And dammit. She just wanted to laugh. It felt so damn good to laugh again.

"So glad you find this so amusing, Rose Tyler," Trapp called from the door of his machine. "With this delightful little turn of events in play, I think it's time for me to take my leave. I'll come back in a day or so with a few things to help out, and to give her an official registration tag." He lowered his head and lifted his brows to urge her to speak up to his next question. "And you. You'll be okay, yeah?"

"I will," she answered him with a soft smile. "I promise you."

"Well, then," he chuckled. "If you _promise_ , then who am I to disbelieve you?"

"Safe flight, Trapp," she called. "And thank you."

He grinned widely at her. "You're welcome." His expression fell to slight puzzlement. "Though I'm not entirely sure what for."

"For helping Pendra," she began with a look toward the small cupboard. "And for the laughter." She shifted her head in its entirety to make sure she looked at him directly. "I haven't laughed like that in a long time. Such a very long time."

"Well that could be taken either as an incredible compliment; or as a swipe for being as ludicrous as a Jester." He winked. "But I'll take the former on that, because the universe not hearing your magnificent laughter … that's an absolute travesty."

"Oh shut up," she called with humour. "See you later."

"You sure will, Rose Tyler. Sleep well, eat well, shower well, and whatever else you do then do that well, too." He shook his head at himself and disappeared behind the doors of his TARDIS. "I really need to research and find myself a life, I really do."

The door closed loudly behind him, and it was only a few seconds before the whining push and pull of the Rotor engines roared to life to take Rose's new friend back across dimensional walls and back to mother Gallifrey. She remained rooted to the spot and simply stared at the vacant space in the basement that the TARDIS called Teden had occupied moments earlier. Part of her will the friendly young Lord to return immediately, but she knew he probably wouldn't materialize again for days or even weeks .. if at all .. but she seriously hoped for his return. She'd missed it. Friends. Conversation. Fun.

…even family.

She missed it all. She really did. She'd forgotten how it felt to laugh and feel honest humour, to meet a perfect stranger and find the connection that just might make them friends.

It had been so long.

Rose turned her head to look at the white cupboard that was her baby TARDIS. She smiled apologetically as she walked toward her with her hands held out in front of her to lightly touch at the wood when she approached. She paused and stroked at the flaking paint and rough wooden surface, and then stepped in close to press both her hands and her forehead into the white painted door.

"I'm so sorry, Pendra," she cooed gently. "We'll work on a connection. We will. I just can't. Not right now." She slid her forehead down along the door as she slowly dropped to her knees. Tears leaked from the very edge of the eye as she felt her silent loneliness engulf her once more. "Is that okay? Please? A little later on? Mummy's just got a really bad headache right now."


	10. Traffic Control

A/N: Have you ever had a chapter challenge you so hard that it beat you mercilessly about the head until you were a weeping mess on the ground?

I got pretty close on this one.

I couldn't seem to get it right ... at all ... so much of this was dumped off and then rewritten and then dumped off and then revised again... and I'm still not particularly thrilled with the final outcome ... But I can't do it anymore.

I needed Trapp to have a couple of allies on Gallifrey, so here they be... So not much with Rose and the Doctor (although the Doctor does show up toward the end) ... I hope you enjoy.

~~oooOOOooo~~

He didn't require any form of intricate telepathic bond for him to know that his capsule was upset. There didn't need to be any telepathic voices or words shared across their link for him to know that the term "upset" was a wild understatement to the current mood that Tedendugalia was in. If the sparks that were currently raining down from the console room ceiling were any indication, Teden was about a single tendril of the transdimensional time spiral away from a full-on Pundeharhiran temper meltdown, and he was making damn sure that his pilot was fully aware of it.

…Couldn't it be considered completely and beautifully ironic that Trapp that had actually briefly touched upon the subject of a Pundeharhiran temper tantrum, oh, less than thirty minutes ago with Rose Tyler?

"Regenerate," he muttered to himself as he dodged an angry spit of sparks that launched up from the very edges of the Helmic Orientator every time he attempted to use the slide device to attempt to input some flight coordinates. "That's what I told her I'd choose if I was ever faced with a horrendous event in time and space such as a Capsule in tantrum mode. She asked and I told her I'd rather regenerate."

There was a horrendous screech from beneath the console room itself that immediately set Trapp's teeth on edge. The room pitched to one side, and the Time Lord stumbled gracelessly against a railed barrier that surrounded the console itself.

His lips curled with annoyance of his own at the behaviour of his ship. "Really?" he snarled at the Time Rotor column. "You're going to do this? Now? Without even asking me just where I actually intend on taking us and what I intend to do first. You're just going to _assume_ that I'm abandoning the two of them back there."

The room stopped shuddering and the rain of sparks slowed somewhat. Trapp pulled himself into a stand and glared a stare of fury into the twisting amber artron energies that ran through the rotor column. His mind's eye gave him the image of Teden's sentient body in an indignant slouch with a heaving chest and curled lip of impatience as he waited for clarification. His voice was level and his tone unimpressed when he finally spoke.

" _If_ my intention was to immediately return to Gallifrey, then I would've input those coordinates in the nav computer before dematerialization … Like. I. Normally. Do … and not just have you fly up into the vortex."

He slapped his hand hard against the rotor column. "Think, you gigantic lump of temporal transdimensional petulance. I've got a youngling in distress and a Time Lady who's quite obviously in danger. Do you believe for a second that I'd leave either of them without some form of protection?"

He waited a moment with only the whining push and pull sound of the ship's engines to fill the void between them, and then blew out a breath and relaxed his stature a little. His voice softened ever slightly.

"I'm as worried as you are, Teden." He let out a breath. "But there's really little that we can do unless she specifically requests help." There was a grumbled whisper of annoyance and argument that shot by his left ear, and Trapp let out a short laugh. "Well. There is _that_ , but if you want to keep little Pendra on your _radar_ , then that might not be the best course of action. Although I do have to admire your enthusiasm."

Trapp smiled at the continued grumbling of his craft and leaned forward over the console to thumb a pair of switches seated underneath the main arm that held the monitor in place. He lifted his chin as the monitor brightened to a brilliant green. A circular symbol spun lazily at the centre of the screen, and a short series of beeps trilled out of the small elongated speaker that formed a cat's eye visage underneath.

After a moment, a humanoid figure appeared on the screen. She was quite obviously female with a slightly buxom bosom wrangled underneath the two-toned heliotrope tunic worn by the inducted members of the Patrex chapter. She had light makeup contouring her pale features, her hair was pulled back into a high bun ... and she wore a very unimpressed expression on her face.

"Gallifrey Traffic Control," she droned along an autonomous breath without looking up from her keyboard. "Please state your flight plan and approval number and await materialization instructions."

Trapp grinned into the camera as he leaned his forearms down on the console's edge in a lazy slouch. "Trappulleskestrupipusikontam of the Arcalian Chapter requesting deviation in originally registered flight plan."

There was a brief twitch on the woman's face, but she didn't look up from her keyboard. Her voice was slightly humoured, although she made every effort to remain as cool and detached as she could. "Lord Trappulleskestrupipusikontam. I don't believe Gallifrey Traffic Control has ever had the fortune of you being _able_ to stick to your original flight plans."

"Such is the curse of holding the lead position out of the dockyards, I'm afraid."

"Your interstitial beacon is broadcasting your presence outside of N-Space, with a locked position within a parallel time vortex funnel." Her eyes finally lifted to offer a green glint of amusement across the communications line. "I believe you've already deviated from your original flight plan of a _'hop, skip, jump across Kasterborous and back'_."

"Lady Celestialutherinyaparan," he greeted with a smile. "If you will refer to the additional notes associated with my flight plan you will note that my capsule was called off course by a distress beacon in parallel 110-25b-654-1-00. I believe the modification to the plan indicated that my hopping, skipping and jumping would receive an additional _waltz_ toward Mutter's Spiral."

Her eyes dropped from the camera, but her smile didn't fall. "Will you be escort to the distressed capsule, Lord Trapp? Shall I notify the black hole shipyard of an incoming repair?"

He let out a sharp laugh of victory. "Thirty seven seconds – a new record!"

Her eyes and her mouth were gaped as she lifted her head. "Oh no no. No, Trapp. That was not a victory, I didn't deviate at all…"

"You failed to use my full name," he corrected with a shake of his head and a light clicking of his tongue. "Mandatory communications ethic under Traffic Control protocols. You may deny it, Celest, but there's the proof that my handsome face does distract you."

Her expression fell. "I hate you."

"I'm sure there's more love than hate in there, my Lady," he corrected with a wink.

"Absolutely not," she answered with a grumble and a petulant fold of her arms across her chest. "Now, how about we drop the formalities and you tell me why you're really contacting Traffic Control." She released the fold of her arms leaned her elbows on the desk in front of her. "You know that you're exempt from having to seek authorization from Control when you're responding to a distress beacon."

"I need you to access the registry," he answered quickly. "And forward to my capsule the communication codes to reach the Time Lord Doctor."

There was a brief flare in her eyes, but the expression was swiftly shielded behind neutrality. "I'm afraid I can't give you that information, Trapp. He contacts us, not the other way around." Her eyed widened a little and her cheeks filled with air, which she blew through puckered lips. "Well. He _would_ if he actually had the manners to let us know he was dropping by, which he doesn't. Have manners, that is."

He send his most pleading look down the camera to her. "Could you try?"

"I know for a fact the registry doesn't have any coding information to contact the Doctor via his TARDIS." She held up her hand to halt any argument from him. "His TARDIS and any of her registration data has been all but deleted from the registry. I'm sorry, but I can't access that information for you because it doesn't exist."

"Ah," he breathed as his head lowered to put him in a deeper slouch. "I was afraid that might be the case." He lifted his head. "I can send out a hypercube, I suppose, but the chances that he'll receive it before my last incarnation are rather on the lower side of probable."

"Yes, I'm afraid that _would_ be the only option available to you," she offered apologetically. She inhaled a deep breath and tipped her head to one side with curiosity. "Why do you need him, anyway?" she queried cautiously. "The distressed Capsule wasn't his, was it?" Her eyes widened further and he mouth widened into a grin. "Or have you finally located the one stolen by his former companion, Clara Oswald?"

He rubbed at his chin and pursed his lips for a short moment. "No," he offered after a moment. "Although my scanners are still scrubbing N-Space for any sign of her. I truly don't want to consider what damage an untrained and unlinked pilot will do to her." He let out a breath as his eyes pinched with sadness. "My hearts break for the terror that beautiful girl must be experiencing right now."

Celest had to chuckle. "Are you talking about the girl or the Capsule?" She looked down to her right and thumbed through a few switches as she continued to work while speaking with him. "And before you answer that, do be aware that I consider that to be the single most ridiculous question ever posed across all of Kasterborous."

"Capsule," he answered with a wink and a smile. "Always the capsule."

Celest snorted and looked back to the monitor with a smirk. She spoke to him, while focusing on a secondary monitor beside her primary one. "There's a reason your wife walked out on you, Trapp."

"Walked out on me?" he blustered incredulously. "She barely made it through the hand fasting before she _ran_."

" _You_ barely _made it_ there," she said with a laugh. "And when you did you had that ridiculous harness with a Pundeharhiran seedling on your chest and under your robes." She held up her hand before he could splutter in a remark. "What ailment did you say it had? Separation anxiety?"

He exhaled a hard breath and looked to the ceiling with a shake in his head. "Her two elder cradle sisters had just been transported to another section of the hyperlooms for Block Transfer. She was very lonely and scared."

"Really?" she huffed with obvious amusement. "You know, I've heard some ridiculous excuses in my time." She looked directly into the camera at him. "Tell me, Trapp. Do you take them to bed with you as well?"

His voice flattened out and his eyes narrowed. "Are you looking for current contact coding protocols for the Lord Doctor for me, or not?"

Celest looked back to her secondary monitor and shrugged. "It's a busy day. What makes you think I'm wasting time looking for information that I know isn't available via official means?"

"Because it _isn't_ available via _official_ means," he answered with a waggle in his brow. "Which presents a challenge to you."

"Yeah yeah yeah." The very tip of her tongue – as pink as the second shade of colour on her tunic – flicked out to swipe across her tongue. "Look. This might get me into a lot of trouble," she muttered as her eyes swept from side to side between computer screens and keyboard. She inhaled deeply as her fingers began to fly much more frantically across the keyboard. "Oh, what am I saying? This'll put me back in the Academy for a decade if I get caught. So you can just add this to the list of things you owe me."

His brows pinched just slightly as his secondary monitor suddenly flashed up with a green screen that flickered and flashed, and then settled with a dialogue box asking for login credentials to the Time Lord Matrix files. He stared with wide eyes at the blinking cursor in the password box that was below the user ID of: Spendrell.

He immediately jumped back from his console as though being anywhere near it would horrifically burn him. "Are you _insane_? The Matrix of the Lords?"

She danced a little in her seat. "The Time Lord Matrix," she sang with an arrogant little grin scrunching up her nose. "Oh yeah. I did that." Her arrogance lifted and she sat straighter in her chair as she finalized the data transfer. Her eyes were still focused on two of the three monitors at her station. "I'm sending the Matrix access codes through your Capsule's onboard computer. Whatever information you're looking for, you should be able to find it in there."

His eyes widened. "I can't believe that you actually pulled the Matrix codes?" His mouth was gaped. "How? Why?"

She smiled and shook her head lightly. "I know you, Trapp. If you're insisting on finding the Lord Doctor, then there stands a reason for it." She smiled softly at him. "And your reasons are usually pretty important – if not incredibly insane." Her voice tightened a little as she lifted her eyes to his. "Just promise me that it _is_ important, Trapp."

"I believe it is," he offered gently. "There's an old acquaintance of his in trouble, and I think calling him might be less of an ordeal for her than me calling in the Chancellery Guards or Shadow Proclamation."

Celest blinked rapidly. She looked side to side and then leaned closer to the camera. Her voice was quiet and worried. "Tell me that you haven't witnessed a crime and aren't reporting it to the appropriate authorities." Her brow pinched and she leaned back hard into her chair with a shake of her head. "No, never mind. Look who I'm talking to…"

"A statement that can be taken a couple of ways," he deadpanned with a shake in his head.

She merely flicked her hand to him in a pointing gesture, but said nothing as she covered her eyes with her hand.

"I didn't witness a crime per se," he admitted carefully. "However, I see plenty of indicators that suggest a recent telepathic assault by a spouse."

Celest's head shot up. Her eyes were wide and her mouth gaped with horror. "What?"

"And judging by the fear I saw in her eyes, Celest." He took a breath and shook his head. "I doubt it's the first time he's done it."

Celest panted a couple of quiet breaths. "He needs to have the postsynaptic cell receptors torn from his brain." She sat up straight and laid one forearm on the desk. Her other hand rose so that she could stab her finger into the monitor. "And you need to get her out of there, Trapp. That's _your_ responsibility right now."

"If I could then I would…."

"And meanwhile let me contact the Chancellery Guards," she continued sharply. "You'll need to give me her exact spatial coordinates for them to make contact."

"Celest…"

"Because," she growled. "Oh. There is no way that any Lord of Time – or anyone for that matter – is going to get away with raping someone's mind!"

Trapp rubbed at his brow and let out a long breath. "She hasn't _asked_ for assistance, Celest. We _can't_ send in the guards to arrest him if she's not going to admit he's done anything to her."

She lifted her eyes to glare a darkened stare through the camera at him. "Would you like to put a wager on that, Trapp?"

"Just find a way to let me get hold of the Doctor," he half begged inside a long suffering whine. "I don't believe for a second that all she is to him is a casual acquaintance."

Celest paused her frantic typing to look curiously at his image on the monitor. "What makes you say that?"

"He gave her a piece of his TARDIS," he admitted quietly. He heard his friend draw in a startled breath and continued. "The distress beacon that I received is from an unregistered Pundeharhiran. A wild youngling that was grown from a clipping of the Doctor's Type-40."

"Rassilon…"

Trapp nodded. "He's not going to give that to someone who is a mere acquaintance. Whoever Rose Tyler is to him – it's more than I think either of them are going to admit to."

"And if he cares for her," Celest said with a gulp. "And she comes to harm at the hands of a Time Lord…"

He nodded slowly. "So please, Celest. Help me find him."

She resumed typing on the keyboard. "Teden's onboard has the link to the Matrix. I'm sending through the access codes now. But I have to warn you," she cautioned softly. "If it pertains to the Lord Doctor, then I really don't fancy your chances of anything being accurate. The Castellan has his file locked up fairly tightly. Only a few Lords have full access – and even then, the information is speculative at best."

His console lit up with several blinking lights to indicate a secure connection was being sought from control at Gallifrey. Knowing that his time was limited, Trapp quickly accepted the connection. He licked at his lip and focused on the pathways shown on a secondary monitor. "Even if I can't find any communication protocol information, if I could just get information on one of his known acquaintances who might be able to assist," he supplied softly. "Perhaps we can reach him."

His eyes widened, as did Celest's on the other side of the connection when the face of the elderly Spandrell replaced the data streaming over the link.

Trapp moaned. "Oh, by Omega's Capsule…"

"Lord Trappulleskestrupipusikontam and Lady Celestialutherinyaparan," Spandrell droned rather sardonically over the link. "How did I guess that it'd be the two of you illegally accessing the Matrix of the Lords?" His eyes looked between the two of them – one an image on a monitor, the other directly at Trapp via his own screen. "I would imagine that the two of you are far too busy to be engaging in your usual pranks and mischief making."

Trapp spluttered with indignant insult. " _Usual pranks and mischief_ , sir? Lady Celest and myself do not engage in _pranks and mischief._ " He thumbed at his nose and looked off to one side. "Well. At least not since the Academy days…"

"The time which spans your previous to your most recent digression is irrelevant," Spandrell shot back coolly. "It merely proves that one which is a mischief maker will always be a mischief maker." His thin-lipped expression tipped up into a forced smile. "That said, however, I have been monitoring your transmission with Celestialutherinyaparan, Lord Trappulleskestrupipusikontam. What I heard is rather unsettling."

Trapp nodded. "You could say that."

"I have and I will," he droned in reply. "Lord Trappulleskestrupopisikontam. Your standing within the Hyperloom and Dry Dockyard facility grants you accesses above many who reside even on Council – but even you are not allowed access to the Matrix of the Lords." He let out a breath. "However. If there is any legitimacy at all in the conversation shared between yourself and Lady Celestialutherinyaparan just now, then I believe that I may be able to provide you with some of the information you're seeking." He held up his hand toward Trapp's sudden smile of gratitude. "Such legitimacy will need to be proven to me, Trappulleskestrupipusikontam. You will need to verify with me the identity of this woman who claims association with the Doctor."

"I really don't know what I can offer you," he breathed back with a somewhat defeated shrug. There was no hiding his facetiousness when he spoke again. "We met only briefly – not quite enough time for me to compile a complete dossier…" He jumped in place as the console around him lit up. There were several chirps and blips from the main Rotor column. "Teden, what are you up to?"

Spandrell's eyes widened at his own monitor. His breath hitched and his eyes widened as his lips drew into a pucker. He shook his head and moved quickly to a keyboard beside a brightly lit terminal at his side that was visible on the monitors.

"This cannot be," he breathed nervously. His eyes shifted toward Celest. "Lady Celestialutherinyaparan. Withdraw the complaint that you've forwarded to the Chancellery Guards with apology for the miscommunication."

"My Lord?"

"Immediately," he growled shortly. "If there is one thing that the forces of Gallifrey will not get involved in – that's affairs that directly relate to the Doctor and his associates." He looked toward Trapp's monitor. "Lord Trappulleskestrupipusikontam, the verification provided by your capsule is most alarming…"

Trapp kept his ear on the communications feed, and leaned down slightly to his ship as Spandrell droned on slightly. He spoke out of the side of his mouth. "Just _what_ did you tell him?"

"Rose Tyler," Spandrell continued with worry inside his ancient, aged, voice. "Is one of only two of the Doctor's companions who have been all but eliminated from the Matrix files."

Trapp's brows pinched at that. "She was a _companion_?" His brows remained taut and he shook his head. Slowly in bafflement. "But she told me they were only acquaintances. The relationship between the Doctor and his companions has always been reputed as being very close."

"Some more than others," Spandrell muttered dryly. "And this one," he ambled slowly over to another computer and picked up a small cylindrical device. "This young lady was someone quite special to the old man." He lifted his head and turned slowly to return to his original terminal. "Rumours have circulated throughout the Capitol that he was in love with this child; that it was her image that saved Gallifrey from destruction."

"The Bad Wolf," Celest murmured with awe. "The name written across all of Time and Space…"

"To lead her to the one that would end the Time War," Trapp finished. His eyes were wide, yet pinched and pained. "But the one I met, Rose. She's not an all-powerful entity. She's just a woman, a Lady of Time…"

"I'm going to take offense at the _just a woman_ comment, Trapp," Celest broke in. "There's no such thing as _just a woman_."

"You know what I'm getting at, Celest," he huffed in reply. "By comparison to the legend of the Bad Wolf, there is very much a thing as _just a woman_." He let out the remaining breath in his lungs and drew in hard. HE blushed lightly and cleared his throat. "Although, I will have to admit that there does seem to be something about her that is intriguing to a Lord of Time."

"Indeed," Spandrell gruffed. "And the Lord Doctor certainly found intrigue inside the one he called his _precious girl_. If she is truly his Rose Tyler, and she is in peril at the hands of a Time Lord, then all of Gallifrey is in danger if we don't do all that we can to let him know that she needs his assistance." He dropped the cylinder into a small port on his terminal. "I don't need to remind either of you of the calamity he brought down on Gallifrey the last time one of his companions ended up in trouble."

Trapp thumbed at his nose. "I won't forget. I lost one of the girls during that escapade."

Celest lifted a brow. "I love that you hold the loss of a Capsule higher than the exile of Lord Rassilon and the Lord Council, and the execution-forced-regeneration of the General."

"Don't _you_?"

"I don't snuggle with Pundeharhiran sleep toys when I go to sleep, so no."

Spandrell chuckled a throaty, crackled laugh. "I'm sure there are many on Gallifrey who hold much the same opinion as Lord Trappulleskestrupipusikontam, Lady Celestialutherinyaparan. Do please respect that each of us holds our own opinion and we are not to judge another Lord or Lady of time…"

"Oh please," she moaned. "Gallifrey should have been renamed _Land of Judgement_ several millennia ago."

Trapp tapped his fingertip on the console edge and jumped lightly as his panel monitor lit up and scrolled a long list of spiralling code in a seemingly endless train. He shifted his body with a jerk to lower himself enough to try and identify the coding.

"I've released to your capsule the last verified communication signal feed wavelength information from the Lord Doctor's TARDIS," Spandrell advised sternly. "The coding, unfortunately, is outdated and not compatible to his current time relative to his last visit to Gallifrey…"

"His TARDIS wasn't on Gallifrey for his last visit," Trapp replied somewhat distractedly as he continued to watch the data stream across his monitor. "If it was, I wouldn't have lost one of my newly outfitted younglings to his thieving companion."

"And the General would still be a Lord and not a Lady," Celest offered with a shrug. "Not that she's particularly upset by it. I think she's glad to be back to Lady. I know _I_ would be."

"This shows the last verified contact between the TARDIS and Gallifrey communications was back during the Time War," Trapp cut in with surprise. He lifted his head and looked to Spandrell's image with an expression of confusion. "But that ended more than a millennium and a half ago. This information is more than outdated, it's positively archaic." His brows tightened together. "I don't even know that Teden's systems are even compatible."

"I'm sure that you'll manage," Spandrell muttered with a wry smile. "Just remember. If you encounter a younger incarnation of the Time Lord – don't give him any…"

"Spoilers!" Celest sang out with a grin in her voice as well as across her face. "I totally read that somewhere…" Her brows lifted. "Oh yes. Right here, actually. Under the information on the unofficial _wife_ of the Doctor: River Song."

Spandrell let out a long breath of annoyance. "Lady Celestialutherinyaparan, there are several rather tight disciplinary measures to be applied to Time Lords and Ladies that insist on behaving like nosy tafelshrews by hacking into Matrix files."

"As I am one of only three people familiar with this current quandary, I feel it rather prudent for me to arm myself with as much intelligence as is available…"

"Intelligence," he scoffed with a curl in his lip. "My dear young Lady, when it comes to intelligence, I fear it's believed that the Lord Doctor lacks any of any real substance."

"That's not what it says here," she sang with a wriggle in her seat. The wriggle and song of victory ended abruptly as Spandrell cancelled the feed between their stations. "Oh. Right."

"Lord Trappulleskestrupipusikontam," he said with heat in his voice and a continued glare toward the image of Celest on his screen. "You will make contact with the Lord Doctor and implore him to solve what I imagine is a situation of his own doing."

"Yeah," he drawled slowly. "I think I'll refrain from telling him that it's probably his fault that the woman he loves is being telepathically assaulted."

"That might be a good idea," Spandrell said with a smirk. The smile fell. "Although history suggests that he'll accept the blame for it without anyone assigning any such responsibility."

"No doubt. I think I would, too."

"Do remember, Lord Trappulleskestrupipusikontam," Spandrell continued gravely, "that the Lord Doctor can be volatile when one that he cares about is in peril. Tread carefully and do ensure that the incarnation of him who responds to your call is the appropriate one for our current time stream. Gallifrey's current period of peace and harmony can be easily compromised by a single misstep by that one Time Lord. Take him from the wrong part of Gallifrey's Timeline, and we could be thrown back into turmoil."

Trapp pursed his lips and nodded his head slowly. He looked to his Capsule's console and blew out a breath. "No pressure, Teden, yeah?" He felt an uncomfortable laugh in his left ear and looked back up to the monitors. "And so on that delightfully morbid note of warning, I shall make my leave and reach out to the Time Lord Doctor and see just where to go from here."

"And if you cannot reach him, Lord Trappulleskestrupipusikontam…"

Trapp nodded knowingly. "Then I take it upon myself to ensure her safety until such time that I can reach out to him. I understand." He lifted his eyes. "But also understand that I can't remain in her presence on a constant basis. Rose hasn't asked for assistance…."

"No," Celest offered eagerly. "But you did make mention of a youngling Pundeharhiran that requires your _orange-thumb_ to get her flight worthy."

Spandrell smiled a grin that was full of aged and crooked yellow/brown teeth. "A perfect arrangement then, wouldn't you say? Your continual presence will be warranted if you are protecting Gallifrey's resources off-world."

Trapp rolled his eyes and drummed his fingers on the console. "I prefer to see it as preserving and nurturing the life of a precious species." He gave a slight smirk. "In this case, two members of two brilliant species. And both of them quite lovely."

"Be wary of your affections, young Lord," Spandrell warned. "The Lord Doctor is a rather territorial fellow. I don't imagine that he would be favourable to you seeking any form of fondness from the woman he loves."

Celest shook her head, but smiled. "Lord Spandrell," she said with a laugh. "It's not the _woman_ that you'll have to worry about Trapp here looking to snuggle and cuddle with."

"And on _that_ note," Trapp said with wide eyes of warning and a slight sneer in the set of his eyes. "Good day to you both. I'll report in when I have any further information to share."

Without waiting for any responses from either Celest or Spandrell, Trapp ended the communication feed. He looked down to the console of his ship and shook his head.

"Is she my friend or my enemy, Teden?" There was a whisper of an answer inside his ear that made the slouching Time Lord fall further into his slouch to erupt into laughter.

"Oh. I'm _not_ going to tell her that." He straightened up and adjusted the skewed seat of his tunic on his shoulder. He then rubbed at his chin. "I quite like this face, thank you, and would like to keep it for another couple of centuries before I have to change it again."

He slapped at the console and let out a forced whoop. "So. My amazing friend. What do you say about you and me looking to contact the Doctor to let him know about Rose and little Pendra?" He watched a few lights flicker on the console and a grumbling series of beeps trilled out from the column. He knew if he pushed it, that Tedendugalia would thwart any efforts with very little effort of his own.

"Oh, don't be like that." Trip chuckled as he stooped over completely to lean against his forearms on the console. He made a point of looking at his fingernails rather than the darkened monitor in front of him. "You know. There are legends about the Doctor's TARDIS. I hear that she's a seeded classic of such incredible magnificence…" He lifted his eyes. "Royalty, even." He dropped his eyes again. "A pure mistress loyal to only time and her beloved pilot … untainted by any other male of her species."

He waited.

Nothing.

He huffed. "Okay, then. Not buying into that, then?" He leaned forward and lowered his voice to a whisper. "She's also the mother of Pendralambelle, and your potential hurdle to…" He gasped as the ship lurched and all the monitors came online.

"That's my boy," he cheered as he skipped from keyboard to keyboard to monitor, switch and button to initiate a connection between the Doctor's TARDIS and his own Capsule. "What do you think, my friend? Want to test out your new holographic-telepathic interface systems on this little tête-à-tête with Gallifrey's infamous son? Or did you want to go with a straight monitor-to-monitor discussion?"

The console room suddenly shifted into complete darkness around him. Trapp blinked and petted his hands atop the console in front of him to search out the switch for the console lights. "You okay, there, Ted?"

The console lit up again, and Trapp had to blink against the sudden harsh lighting in a console room that was usually quite dim. He hummed out a breath of concern and found his voice joined by a hum that was equally concerned but not at all unfamiliar.

A soft voice of greeting whispered gently against his ear, and although he knew it was a telepathic voice of a mature Pundeharhiran female, he still spun as though seeking out the owner of the voice. When he received a breathy chuckle, he smiled and relaxed a little.

"Well _hello_ , beautiful," he cooed with awe in reply as he spun in a tight circle to look around him. "Look. At. You. You have to be the most magnificent creature I have ever seen."

There was a giggle to his right side, and Trapp spun with a gasp to find himself face to face with a very attractive and slight brunette woman that had a light flush on her cheeks and a twinkle in her eye.

"Well thank you," she said with a smile on her face that lifted right up into her eyes. "You're not too bad yourself."

Trapp's eyes widened and his jaw gaped. "Oh. Yes. Sorry. Didn't see you there." He held up his hands. "That isn't to say that I'm retracting any statement of beauty, because you do seem to have that in droves. Lots of droves of beauty, actually." He indicated the console of the TARDIS beside him with both hands, and without turning to face it. "I was actually talking to the ship."

"Oh," Clara breathed with a slight falter in her smile.

"Bit of a connoisseur, you see," he continued sheepishly. "Sentient time ships and their cultivation, protection and continued symbiotic relationships with the Lords of Time…" His brow tightened with embarrassment. "You know, perhaps I should introduce myself or something, because I imagine that a Time Lord suddenly appearing out of nowhere might be a little unnerving."

Clara's brows were high and her cheeks rounded with a grin she simply could seem to completely extinguish. "No. Not really. At least, not around him, anyway."

"Actually, Clara," the Doctor argued with his own light smile from across the other side of the rotor column. "The presence of Time Lords on my TARDIS is actually quite unusual."

"We had three of you in the console room only two weeks ago, Doctor."

He lifted a finger in an upward point. "Right. Yes. Well that doesn't exactly count as the three Time Lords were actually myself." He looked across to Trapp. "Different incarnations. Not quite sequential in their order – was missing one of my faces in between my last and his previous to previous face."

"That still makes three Time Lords," Clara argued cheekily.

"But it doesn't make it any less of a common occurrence, Clara," he said with a wag in his brow as he slipped his rounded glasses onto his nose. He held his arms loosely behind his back and stepped with practiced confident cautiousness around the console toward the Trapp's shimmering holographic image. "Less common is a visual holographic image from a neighbouring TARDIS." He kept his hands behind his back and leaned forward to closely scrutinize the man in front of him. "Quite remarkable technology. Are you projecting from a Type 89, by chance?"

"Type 89B – Mark II," Trapp replied with a smirk. "Still in the testing phase, you understand."

"I see," the Doctor replied as he straightened up and whipped his glasses from his face. "I can certainly offer you my thoughts on the quality of your projection at a later moment. But for now, perhaps we should make introsuctions." He straightened to his full height and forced out a smile of greeting. "Hello. I'm the Doctor."

"Hello Lord Doctor," Trapp replied with a smile. "I'm Lord Trappulleskestrupipusikontam. Born of the Arcalian chapter and current …"

"Yes yes," he interrupted rudely. "The name is fine. I can quite clearly see that you're from the Arcalian Chapter, with your love of the colour green and all." He swept his hand up and down in front of Trapp to indicate his clothing. "I don't find that, nor what you are assigned to on Gallifrey wholly important right now. What I do find to be quite fascinating right now is just why you're on my TARDIS, and when can you leave?"

"Doctor," Clara chided with a crease in her brow. "Do try to have some manners. This Lord… uh…"

"Trapp," Trapp conceded with a weary smile. "Just call me Trapp. Everyone else does. Well everyone except my wife."

"And what does _she_ call you?" Clara joked, maintaining a decent flirt regardless of his marital status.

"That list is long and very varied," he answered with a wink.

"Still together?"

"Do. You. Mind?" the Doctor huffed out with a roll in his eye and a shake in his head. "I just indicated rather clearly that I would like him to leave, Clara. I don't think that you flirting with him and inflating your eyes and doing that…" He lifted his hands to his eyes and wiggled his fingers. "That eye lash batting thing you do is very conducive to my desire to have him gone."

He waited a moment and stared between both hologram and Human and waited for one or the other to actually move. When neither of them moved or spoke, he threw his hand out to the side in a gesture toward the door of the TARDIS.

"Well?" he demanded.

"Can I at least have a brief moment to explain why I'm looking for you?"

"I resigned from my position of errand boy to Gallifrey quite some time ago," the Doctor replied coolly. "Right around the same time that the Daleks invaded the planet and I was left with no other option but to destroy it." He paused. "Which I apparently did not do." He moved in close and lowered his voice. "I didn't. Did I?"

Trap shook his head. "No."

The Doctor didn't move. His voice remained as a low and conspiratorial whisper. "So I did it, then? It worked. I saved Gallifrey?"

"You did," Trapp replied with a slow nod of his head.

"Well! That's just marvellous, isn't it," he cheered as he stepped backward, held out his arms, and spun a triumphant twirl. He twirled past Clara and took hold of her hands to pull her up against him in a sloppy, messy waltz of triumph. "Did you hear that, Clara? It worked! Gallifrey didn't burn. We saved it!"

Clara giggled against his ear. "That's wonderful, Doctor."

Trapp watched the Doctor dance with all the coordination of a clumsy housecat with a raised brow of curiosity. Eventually, with urging from his machine, Trapp shook his head and folded his arms across his chest. "I really hate to break this up, but my ship is currently hovering inside a Vortex of a parallel universe that isn't his own. He's starting to run low on power – which means I don't have a great deal of time for you to continue to try to ignore my presence and kick me off your TARDIS."

"I told you," he said over Clara's shoulder as he continued to dance with her. "I'm not Gallifrey's errand boy anymore. If you have problems that need sorting out, then you can find someone else to do it for you."

Trapp licked at his lip and nodded. "Fine. If that's how you want to play it, Lord Doctor. I'll do what I can to protect her myself until I can get the both of them out of danger."

His interest was suddenly piqued enough that he stopped twirling a giggling Clara Oswald. "Protect who? Who's in danger, and what would it have to do with me?"

Trapp tipped his head to one side and narrowed a glare of challenge toward the Doctor. "Does the name Rose Tyler mean anything to you?"


	11. Interstitial Antenna

_A/N:_...I hated writing this chapter. It's taken me three days to wade my way through it. Why is that? Because I wrote myself into a freaking hole, didn't I?

Why was Trapp looking for the Doctor? What did he really see that prompted him to go look for the old boy? NOTHING! Just suspicion, right? UGH! So how does one write through that, then? Well... with plenty of false starts, deleted paragraphs, rewriting... oh, and then... THEN... What's the Doctor going to do? What's he going to say? "to hell with the universe, there's no power stopping me from getting to her" or "Yeah, sure. No worries at all. I'll just sit here and twiddle my thumbs until the timelines synch up a little more and I can go in there and help out the woman I love because I really am a patient man"?

Oh, time for a rather fast change in the direction that THIS fic is going to take... Sighhhhhhh... I can still work it from here. I can. Noooooo worries ... I'll just have to give creativity a shot.

I certainly hope you enjoy. This is a long chapter filled with plenty of jibber-jabba and two Lords sizing each other up... Thank you for all of the lovely comments I'm receiving on this fic. It certainly fuels the creative process, that's for sure!

Oh, and the current ladder stands at: Chapters - 9, Author - 2 ... this chapter was the victor on this battle...

 _~~oooOOOooo~~_

 _Trapp tipped his head to one side and narrowed a glare of challenge toward the Doctor. "Does the name Rose Tyler mean anything to you?"_

The Doctor's entire body stilled at the question asked by the holographic interface image of his fellow Time Lord.

What did the name _Rose Tyler_ mean to him?

Well. Plenty of things, actually. That name represented salvation: _his_ salvation. That name was compassion and optimism, adventure and thrill, honour, loyalty and valour … the _Valiant Child …_ Oh, that name taught him how to live and to even _love_ again.

When darkness loomed and all seemed lost, that name – that glorious name – gave him the joyous light, hope and inspiration to keep going.

The words _Rose Tyler_ should have been listed in any and all synonym lists of word courage. Her fierce bravery was contagious; so contagious that even in his most cowardly moments he felt as brave as she was.

If he were to put it in simple terms: That name meant _everything_ to him.

And the owner of that particularly magnificent name was at the galactic centre of his entire universe…

…At least she was until she was locked away from him on the other side of a dimensional wall.

His mouth flapped slowly as he tried to sound out a pair of words that he had only ever vocalised a handful of times inside of four centuries. He hadn't said it since the day he last saw her in a small marketplace on Greece two centuries ago and wasn't sure if he was able to even pronounce the words anymore.

He didn't deserve to say her glorious name. He truly didn't. He thoughtlessly abandoned her on a windswept and cold beach and left her at the mercy of a mad-man. He couldn't find his way through the walls to pull her free of his clutches and save her as she had saved him so very long ago. He'd let her down. He'd broken his promise to her and to Jackie. He'd failed her. He failed them both. He didn't deserve to say her name…

He exhaled through an open mouth and attempted to make a sound. He managed only to increase the volume of a small whimper that was caught in the back of his throat.

Trapp tipped his head backward slightly and tightened his eyes at the sudden trance-like state that had overtaken the Doctor at the mention of Rose's name. It appeared that the rumours that circulated the Capitol might have had some substance to them after all.

"You know what," he breathed carefully. "Never mind. As I said earlier, I can certainly look into taking care of the situation myself without imposing on you, what, with you no longer being _Gallifrey's Errand Boy_." He turned to face the console of the TARDIS. "I will need to gather some information before I leave, however, so if you'll forgive my presence a moment, I need to speak with your capsule."

That quickly snapped the Doctor from his reverie. He broke from his frozen stance that still held Clara against his chest, pushed himself away from her and stalked across the clear Perspex floor toward the hologram. "You will do no such thing," he growled territorially.

Trapp ignored the Doctor's approach. He didn't even watch from the corner of his eye as the Doctor stood close enough to his projection as to be able to press his chest into Trapp's side. Instead, he offered the console a tender, friendly smile. "Hello, beautiful. My name's Trappullekestrupipusikontam, but you can call me Trapp." He paused, and then laughed. "Oh yes, or you can call me _that_ if you like – although we'd have to keep it between just us, what, with the potential impropriety of such a name."

The Doctor sneered into Trapp's ear. "You can stop playing now. Every Lord and Lady knows that you can't engage in casual conversation with a TARDIS. Their telepathic receptors aren't compatible with those possessed by Gallifreyans."

Trapp continued to ignore him. He maintained a bit of _small talk_ with the TARDIS instead as he allowed her to reach deep inside his subconscious to gain her trust. "I met your daughter a few hours ago," he continued gently, "and let me tell you, she's a very pretty girl." He winked and stroked at the console. "Beautiful, just like her mother."

The Doctor jerked backward just slightly. "Are you … Are you _hitting on_ my TARDIS?"

Across the other side of the console, Clara spat out a sound of brilliant amusement that had the Doctor immediately fire her a glare. "Do you mind not laughing, Clara? It is not a laughing matter." He then flicked his head back to Trapp. "And do _you_ mind not hitting on my TARDIS. She's a good girl that doesn't need to be rudely propositioned by a …" He disgustedly waved his hand up and down in the air ahead of him toward Trapp. "By a _pretty boy_ Time _Lad_."

Trapp maintained his focus on the TARDIS. His image leaned down on his elbows onto the console edge. "Yes, dear. I give you my vow that I will do everything I can to make sure your beautiful daughter becomes absolutely magnificent." He paused a moment as though listening and nodded. "Yes. Very much so. She has in fact already chosen herself a worthy Time Lady as her bond mate." He lifted his brows and then smiled. "Her name is Rose Tyler. Do you know her?"

The Doctor's eyes narrowed at the ease by which this Time Lord stranger spoke Rose's name. There was familiarity in his gentle and warm tone of voice. Familiarity that clutched at both of his aching hearts.

"My question to you, Lord Trapp – may I call you Trapp?"

Trapp tilted his head to look up at the Doctor. His brow lifted curiously. "Is that your question?"

The Doctor looked briefly puzzled. "Is _what_ my question?"

"If you can call me _Trapp_ ," he stated with a sigh as he lifted up off the console's edge and folded his arms across his chest. He leaned his hip against the console. "Which you can," he stated with a shrug. "Far easier to recall and pronounce than the full version of it."

"My question," the Doctor breathed out with impatient accusation. "Is do _you_ know Rose Tyler?"

Trap shrugged up only his right shoulder. "I wouldn't be so quick to claim that I actually _know_ Rose Tyler in the manner that your tone is suggesting," he answered carefully. "I've met her. Yes. I've spoken with her. Yes I have. I am aware that she is a remarkable woman who is a nurturing spirit and holds the love of not one, but two female Pundeharhirans." He looked to the console a moment. "This one, and the dear little one clipped from what this beautiful lady tells me was taken from… Where was it again, dear?" He listened, licked at his lip and then lifted a brow. "Part of Your _bedroom_ wall." He gave the Doctor a one-sided smirk of judgement. "A rather _intimate_ gift, wouldn't you say?"

The Doctor rubbed at the back of his head and cleared his throat somewhat uncomfortably. "I don't really recall just where I obtained that particular chunk of TARDIS." He awkwardly wrung his hands together and then lifted one in a nonchalant gesture that fitted in with a shrug. "Just found it lying around. Could've been from anywhere, really."

Trapp nodded as he carefully shielded a smile. "No. It was definitely from the bedroom, and TARDIS is quite insistent that it wasn't as much _found_ as it was _torn_ from her wall."

The Doctor's entire stature fell into a slump of embarrassed incredulity. "And just how would you know that?" He pointed harshly toward the console. "I know that _she_ didn't tell you. Communication with TARDISes simply doesn't work that way."

Trapp twisted slightly to show the Doctor the left side of his chest and then drew a finger along an embroidered patch emblazoned with high Gallifreyan text.

The Doctor pulled his rounded glasses from his pocket and slid them quickly onto his nose. He narrowed his eyes and scrutinized the patch for a short moment. He remained in his lean, but lifted his head to look past his nose and up at Trapp's holographic image. "I must be experiencing some leakage of my intelligence and common sense as I age," he drolled inside a huff as he finally straightened himself to a stand. "The way you referred to the TARDIS as a Pundeharhiran should have alerted me to your role in Gallifreyan Society." He slid his glassed off his face and pocketed them with a sigh. "Although in my own defence, it isn't common that an Arcalian takes post at the Cradling facilities. It's much more common that your Chapter aspires to council posts."

"That's what my wife thought, too," Trapp admitted with a sigh as he thrust one hand into his trouser pockets and set the other on the console edge. "When she petitioned to arrange our betrothal, that is."

The Doctor smirked. "Marriages arranged by the house Kithriarchs are always _exciting_ aren't they?"

"In seeing how they ultimately fall apart?" He shrugged. "Mine lasted approximately three minutes after she discovered that I was a lowly Hyperloom technician with zero aspirations to run for council."

The Doctor rubbed thoughtfully at his chin. His voice was low and _almost_ friendly. "There's nothing _lowly_ about working with the young TARDIS, Trapp. It is, in fact, quite an important role to the society of Gallifrey and the Time Lords. Due to the additional synaptic requirement of Gallifreyans to properly connect with the younglings, not everyone can do it. Historically speaking there have only been around fifty Time Lords that were loomed with the telepathic compatibility to connect with them."

"Yeah. I'm four fifths Gallifreyan, one fifth Pundeharhiran," Trapp agreed with a shrug. "I was loomed into this."

The Doctor's brows lifted. "Intentional genetic grafting at looming, then?"

Trapp shrugged. "I was loomed in an Arcalian Chapterhouse – there was nothing intentional about it."

Clara peeped from her side of the console. "So you're part TARDIS?"

"Pundeharhiran," he corrected gently with a smile. He tipped his head toward the Doctor. "Only _he_ calls them TARDIS. And yes, I do have enough genetic mutation to claim heritage to that glorious species." He tapped at his temple. "Mostly in here of course. It means I'm able to communicate and empathise with them, which helps maintain the strength in relationship between both Time Lords and Punderharhirans."

"Are you bigger on the inside, too?" she teased with a chuckle.

He opened his mouth to answer the question, but paused and looked toward the console with wide eyes. He then smiled, blushed, and petted the console. "Oh. That's very kind of you to say, sweetheart."

Clara dipped her head curiously and walked around the console toward him. She looked to the console. "What'd she say?"

Trapp gave her a smile. "That the people she meets always seem to be so much bigger on the inside than even she is."

The Doctor pressed both hands into the console's edge. He leaned down and clicked disapprovingly before speaking in a quietly amused voice. "I know that he's very pretty, dear, but will you please stop flirting with him? It's quite undignified, you know."

Trapp burst out an involuntary snort of laughter through his nose. The exhale had enough violence in it to have him needing to wipe at his nose.

The Doctor glared up at him. He lifted first his finger, and then levered his body up to a stand. "Whatever she just said to you; it's not true."

"I'm sure it's not," he replied in a strained voice. He lifted both hands and released the tightness in his mouth to let a smile spread across his cheeks. "And even if it was, you'll get no judgement from this Time Lord. I agree that she's _very sexy._ "

He turned to walk away, but twisted to point a finger at him. The finger shifted to indicate the rotor column. "My oldest and most trusted friend," he accused petulantly. "Even you're turning against me."

Trapp shook his head. "She isn't, really. She's just being playful. I imagine it's been quite some time since she was able to really communicate with another." He pursed his lips hopefully and lifted his brows in urging. "Any chance you might want to do a stopover at the Shipyards and let me give her a long overdue tune up?"

"I'd much rather not, thank you," The Doctor muttered in reply. "I've little to no desire to materialize anywhere near the arm's reach of Council and its guards." He let out a long suffering breath. "Every time I materialize on Gallifrey, I walk into an alleyway of Time Lord police officers with instructions to arrest me for some random crime that I'm rarely actually involved with."

Trapp shook his head. "I actually think you'll find…"

"Because Council – for some undetermined reason…" He paused and considered that a moment. "Okay. There may be a couple of definable reasons for their animosity, but it's mostly just overreactions on their part." He thrust one hand into his trouser pocket and lifted the other to gesture lazily in the air with a rotating wrist. "I find it quite amusing how they can so easily ignore their own misgivings and treasonous behaviours that results in a call to the Doctor to save their collective arses, but I _forget_ to initiate communication with Traffic Control _one_ time and land my TARDIS inside the Panopticon…"

"I think you may find that opinion has changed, Doctor," Trapp cut in shortly. "There have been many favourable changes made to the general attitude of council since Lady Romanadvoratrelundar was reinstated to her position as Lady President."

The Doctor's eyes lit up and a smile crossed his slightly sunken features. "She has? Oh, that's marvellous! What happened to old Rassilon, then?"

Trapp's expression fell to one of panic. "Uh."

The Doctor wrung his hands together and hunched slightly as he walked around the console, stopping only to offer Clara a cheeky wink. "I can't see the old man rescinding his power without a fight, and the protections that surround him rules out any successful assassination attempts." He paused and looked upward with a grimace of concentration. "Quite possibly the additional protections afforded to ruling parties was partially because of an incident that occurred when I was in my fourth incarnation…"

"And your current incarnation?" Trapp asked in a slightly strained voice. "What number are you currently on?"

The Doctor's head quickly levered downward. His expression was unreadable, but not unfriendly. "Thirteenth and final," he answered with a light shrug. He then grinned and opened his arms. With a hunch still in his shoulders and his neck slightly pulled, he did a single twirl. "And I've never looked younger!"

"Oh," Trap sang in a strangled tone as his face contorted into a tight wince. "Too early, then."

The Doctor quickly breathed out a note of realization. He practically glided across the floor; a lightly hunched glide; to put himself chest to chest with a holographic image within a second. "It's never too early for a Time Lord," he corrected. "Never too late, either. Not when you have a Time Machine handy." He petted the console. "Which I do."

"You have a Time machine without connection to Gallifrey and therefore are unable to navigate across the void," Trapp corrected. He inhaled and straightened his back. One hand settled on his hip and the other raked through his slightly cropped dark hair. He held onto his breath a moment before he continued to speak; and when he did, it was to himself more than the Doctor. "Which means you're not going to be as much help as I'd hoped."

The Doctor leaned in to him again and lowered his voice so that it was barely above a whisper. "I think you'll find that I can _always_ be of help when it's required." His tone shifted slightly on the other side of darkness and he levered a glare of deep green. "Especially when the one needing my help is someone I care about."

"And how much do you _care_ for her?" Trapp asked with a cautiously quiet voice.

"Does it matter?"

"When she tells me that _she_ doesn't matter," Trapp countered gently. "Then it might."

The Doctor tensed with Trapp's words. He remained in his light stoop at his side; his only movement the light heave in his chest as he breathed and a slow pulsing movement of his hands into fists. "She said that?" he asked inside a whisper that held a universe of hurt.

"She refers to your association with her as being _acquaintances_."

The Doctor's head dropped. There was an infinite sadness in his whisper. "I see."

"And that she would prefer that you didn't become involved in this current quandary." Trapp belatedly realized that his words and his matter-of-fact tone of voice could probably be taken as offensive, but he didn't make any efforts to retract it to lessen the sting. Instead he huffed out a long breath and took a step away from the Doctor. "I'm sorry. This was a monumentally bad decision on my part to reach out to you at this moment."

The Doctor's head remained held low. His voice was quiet and resigned. "Do you know that I last saw her almost two centuries ago," he admitted slowly. "And since then I've spent countless hours of every day working with my TARDIS, examining transdimensional flight data equations and theories in an attempt to find my way to her."

He lifted his head in time with a deep inhale and looked to Trapp with tired, ancient, hollow eyes. "I have been met with brick wall after brick wall and failure after Rassilon-damned failure." He sharply raised his finger when Trapp opened his mouth to speak. "But I will not. Ever. Not until the last trace of Lindos falls from my body and I finally end up inside my tomb on Trenzalore." He inhaled. "I will not give up on finding my way back to her."

He lowered his head and his voice saddened. "Even if she doesn't want to see my face or this TARDIS ever again, I'm going to find my way back to her." He swallowed thickly. "And you know why that is, Lord Trap?"

Trapp blinked twice, but said nothing.

So the Doctor answered for him. "Because she _matters_. Rose Tyler _matters_ to me. She always has, and she always will _matter_."

"Because you love her?" he guessed quietly.

The Doctor's head remained low, but he smiled at the answer. "Love." He lifted his head and repeated the word in its high Gallifreyan translation. Trapp shuddered at the lyrical sound of their language curling around a word that was rarely spoken on their planet.

Clara gasped and her delicate hand flew to her mouth. "That sounds beautiful," she gushed quietly. "Absolutely beautiful."

"That's because love _is_ beautiful," the Doctor said with a smile and a slight tilt in his stand to look around the central column toward her. "But it's also cruel and very ugly."

Clara's eyes watered and she shook her head at him. "Don't say that." Her voice was a whisper.

The Doctor looked back to Trapp and drew in a long breath. "When I saw Rose Tyler nearly two centuries ago in a quaint little market place on Greece…"

"Earth?" Trapp clarified.

"Yes. Earth," the Doctor said with a nod. "It was a rather balmy day out. I was there with my friends the Ponds and River Song."

"Your _wife_ ," Trapp ventured.

"Not in any particular traditional sense," he replied with a tip of his head and a lift in his brows. "But when the moment seems appropriate we admit a union." His eyes widened. "Although we don't tend to engage in any typical _married-like…_ things … regardless of any rumour you may or may not have heard or read on Gallifrey." He cleared his throat and spoke in a slightly strained tone of voice. "And if it's in any records at the Capitol that I _may_ have engaged in such … then she probably found a way to put it in there."

Trapp blinked, but said nothing.

Clara, on the other hand, she had a dimpled smile of response for the Doctor. "With her personality, Doctor, I don't know how you _couldn't_ have had _marital relations_ with her." She looked toward Trapp and winked cheekily with enough sauciness as to pick up her entire cheek in the expression. "So full of sass and fire and attitude that one."

"Yes," the Doctor replied with a light smile of affection. "She's quite the woman." The smile fell. "Still. Haven't had the pleasure of her acquaintance for some time. Oh. Almost two centuries, in fact."

"Around the same time you began to search for Rose Tyler," Trapp murmured to himself as he drummed his fingers on the console's edge. He lowered his head to look at a blinking light and tipped his head to one side in curiosity. "Hello…."

"Completely unrelated set of circumstances," The Doctor assured hotly. He frowned as he watched his fellow Time Lord crouch to look underneath console of the TARDIS. "Do you mind not poking around the innards of my TARDIS. I am quite adept at ensuring that she is in perfect working condition, thank you, and I don't appreciate having another Time Lord – or anyone – poking around in there."

"I'm a holographic image," Trapp called up from underneath the console. "No ability to touch and tinker like I'd like to. Can't do much more than take a sniff around down here, and then give you my own personal feedback on what you need to change in order to have this beautiful woman operate much more efficiently than she is right now."

The Doctor leaned over the console's edge and toggled at a switch beside a lighted dial. Very quickly Trapp let out a yelp and fall backwards on his ass. "What in the name of Omega…?"

The Doctor leaned down and spoke against his ear. "Holographic images might not have the ability to touch, but due to the telepathic nature of the transmission it is absolutely possible to have my ship issue a locational ping toward your TARDIS via the holographic interface feed. Most unfortunately for you, this telepathic information transfer must travel via your postsynaptic neural transmitters." He smirked. "It can tend to sting a little."

Trap scrambled to a stand and brushed himself off in an attempt to shield his embarrassment. "Well played, Doctor."

"I usually play it well," he replied with a smirk. The smile fell. "Now. Let's dispense with the chit-chat, shall we? Would you care to tell me just what is happening with my Rose Tyler, and give me the appropriate spatial coordinates for me to go to her."

Trapp pressed his lips together and shook his head. "No can do right now, I'm afraid." He opened his mouth as the Doctor opened his to argue and shook his head. "The Timelines aren't aligned correctly with your current incarnation."

"With my _current_ incarnation," the Doctor breathed out flatly. "Lord Trapp, this is my _final_ incarnation."

"Yes," Trapp breathed out slowly. "It is."

"And as I am four centuries inside this incarnation," he continued quickly. "And with my typical hold on a face being considerably less than that number, and negating the fact that assumptions make an ASS of both U and ME, I will _assume_ that the projected length of my remaining time in this universe isn't all that much longer."

"No," Trap agreed through pursed lips. "Likely not, although stranger things have happened and longevity extended through less dangerous endeavours."

"We both know that's quite unlikely."

"Maybe."

The Doctor blinked suspiciously. He let that word hang a moment inside his mind and then shook it free. "I don't believe that the inconsistency in the timelines can be really _that_ much of an issue."

Trapp rubbed at the back of his neck and winced. "Yeah. You'd think that, wouldn't you?" He blew out a breath and set his hands back on the console. "Right. Here's what I can do. I can have my Capsule issue a reminder program to your TARDIS that will activate when the timelines align. At that moment, the program will issue your TARDIS with the spatial coordinates and the appropriate connectivity with Gallifrey Traffic Control to issue you the transdimensional access for you to be able to traverse through the dimensional plane." He drummed his fingers on the console edge. "I will provide you with my exemption codes so that you don't have to wrangle with the beaurocratic fools that head up that department."

"I don't tend to _wrangle_ , Lord Trapp."

"No," he breathed out with another rub at the back of his neck. "Legend does suggest you're more likely to creatively demand and get your way with very little effort on your part."

"Not all legends are accurate," The Doctor muttered dryly. "I've faced and taken on my fair share of disciplinary actions."

Trapp pushed himself off the console with a grunt. "That's what I can give you for now. I really do apologise for the error in my timing of this transmission." He looked to the Doctor. "The coding we had to reach your TARDIS was sorely outdated. It was fortunate that although in the midst of a war, the matrix was able to record and store the information received during your last communication with Gallifrey."

"Just how long has it been since then?" he queried curiously with a tile in his head and a pinch in one eye. "Because it's only been two weeks for me. You make it sound like centuries have passed."

Trapp inhaled through an open mouth. He held that breath and his mouth gaped for a long moment before he finally staggered that breath out as a series of negative hums. "Nice try."

"It's not a difficult question for you to answer."

"Actually," Trapp remarked with a shake in his head. "It is. Now. If you'll excuse me. I should be off. I made a promise to a Time Lady and her beautiful youngling that I must keep." He stepped back from the console, but pointed at it. "Tedendugalia – my ship – will transfer the information to your TARDIS…"

"Will you tell me that she's okay?" The Doctor asked quietly as he moved slowly toward the console and a rather large black keyboard seated underneath a monitor. "Rose Tyler. Tell me that her life isn't in danger?"

"I don't want to lie to you,' Trapp began. He then licked at his lip and then shut his mouth.

The Doctor's head dropped. "The last time I saw her, she appeared lost and terrified."

"The last time I saw her," Trapp offered in an attempt to provide hope. "Mere hours ago. I was a lucky witness to her glorious laughter. She was beautiful and healthy and full of life." He caught the Doctor's surprised look. "It isn't a surprise to me that a Time Lord would want her affections for his own. The flow of time ebbs around her in a rather magnificent way, doesn't it?" He smiled a rather cheeky grin. "And to have the unwavering love and devotion of a Pundeharhiran youngling barely out of her cradle …"

He whimpered out a sound of awe. "If she wasn't a married Lady, then I might have to express intent."

The Doctor's gaze hardened, but he didn't turn toward Trapp. "Any consent of union toward Rose Tyler would have to come through me, and I'll make it quite clear to you that no man of Gallifrey will get any such permissions." He exhaled through pursed lips, but still kept his eyes on the monitor. "Noone is worthy of her…"

"Especially not you, I'm guessing."

"Apparently not," breathed out.

Finally he slid his eyes toward Trapp and scrutinized him a moment. "You tell me that my Rose Tyler is happy and vibrant and so very full of life and majesty, yet for some reason you've found it necessary to look me up and track me down."

Trapp straightened up, set one hand on his hip and carded his fingers through his hair. "Yeah."

"Might I ask why?"

Trapp winced just slightly. "An overreaction?"

The doctor tipped his head to one side and narrowed his eyes with suspicion. "I could almost be bought into that excuse. You are a Time Lord, after all." He drew in a deep breath. "And if I hadn't seen her panic for myself the last time that I saw her, I just might."

"To be perfectly honest with you, Doctor, if I hadn't seen her reaction to Pendra's request for a symbiotic link with her, I wouldn't have suspected a thing was wrong."

"Pendra," the Doctor queried carefully, "is her youngling TARDIS?" When Trapp nodded he rubbed at his chin and nodded slowly. "Rose has never been at all comfortable with anything going into her mind." He lifted his eyes toward the rotor column. "When she learned of the mild link formed by the TARDIS to ensure that the Translation circuits would be effective, she wasn't at all impressed." He blew out a breath through pursed lips. "As we continued to travel together there was another incident that involved a telepathic attack via psychograft." He sharply held up his hand when Trapp hitched in a startled and horrified breath. "Dealt with and the device destroyed."

"So she's had telepathic intrusion in the past."

The Doctor nodded.

"Which makes her that much more susceptible to attack," he ground out. He then looked the Doctor with anger in his eye. "Are you familiar with her husband: John?" He paused a moment. "Or _Vale_ as she also refers to him." He levelled and hardened his gaze. "And if that moniker means what I think it does…"

The Doctor's eye twitched and his lip curled for a fraction of a second. "If it does then that just makes him _my_ responsibility, doesn't it?" he warned darkly. "And I'm more than willing to take on that responsibility right now."

"Does he know about her previous experience with unsolicited psychic attacks?"

"He _should_ know," the Doctor growled out. "He was there for all of it." He lowered his voice so that it took on a dangerous tone. "Is that what he's doing to her?"

Trapp shook his head. "I honestly don't know. I'm speculating more than anything. For all accounts Rose seems perfectly fine and full of spirit…"

"But you're sensing something amiss."

Trapp exhaled a long breath through parted lips as he rubbed at the back of his head. His voice was breathy. "I probably should get back, I think. It's probably nothing – just the romantic in me looking to rescue a beautiful damsel in distress."

The Doctor snorted. "You're a Time Lord."

Trapp lifted his brows. "Yes. That is a fact that must be taken into consideration, I suppose." He stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets and shrugged. "And so, on that note. I think I've trespassed for quite long enough now."

"Take me to her," the Doctor demanded on a hoarse whisper.

Trapp shook his head and frowned with apology. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I can't." His frown deepened to a wince. "The timelines, you see."

"I don't care what damage you think will happen to the timelines," he growled with a slap at the top of the console for added effect. "This is Rose Tyler. _My_ Rose Tyler. I need to make sure, to see for myself that she's okay. I want – no, need - to see her."

Trapp shook his head. "I'm sorry." He exhaled and then drew in a long breath. "As I said, I'll upload the necessary programming so that the moments your timeline synch's properly with ours…"

"And in the meantime, what?" He snapped. "I'm going to spend the next however long in a state of irrational fear as to her safety…"

"I'll have the date coordinates be five minutes from now," Trapp vowed firmly. "In her timeline it'll be moments."

"And yet how long will it be for me?" he questioned coolly.

How could he tell the Doctor that the time between now and then could very well be almost fifteen hundred years? That was far too cruel an answer for Trapp to give.

"You can make yourself forget," Trapp offered instead as a quiet reminder of a Time Lord's abilities. "You can make yourself forget me, the salvation of Gallifrey, Rose's situation, everything." He looked up into the Doctor's face. "I'd really recommend that you make yourself forget."

The expression that crossed the Doctor's features was one of utter disbelief. "How can you expect me to make myself forget?"

"It's either that, Doctor, or you'll drive yourself insane." He held up his hand when he heard the Doctor hitch in a breath to speak. "You can't ask me take you to her – because I won't."

The Doctor snorted out a derisive breath through his nose. "Instead you'll show up for no reason except to shove it in my face the idea that the woman I have harboured deep feelings for throughout three incarnations and nearly five centuries is in pain at the hands of a madman of my own creation…"

"Of your own _what_?"

"…And then leave with the expectation that I'll quietly stand back and not do what it takes to collapse the walls between dimensions to get to her." He leaned in close to Trapp's holographic image and snarled against his face. "You might want to drop by the Panopticon library and do a little more research into the Doctor, Lord, Trapp. I have never listened to any _advice_ given by any Time Lord, and I certainly don't intend on starting now. When someone I care about is in trouble, then I become a very _very_ dangerous man and there is no power in this entire universe that will stop me from destroying whatever and whoever gets in my way of getting to them." He panted.

Trapp cleared his throat awkwardly, but refused to back down. "Two centuries, Doctor."

The Doctor's eyes pinched at the reminder. His hand thrust out to his side and he palmed a big orange button on the console. There was darkness in his voice that made even Clara shudder. "Now get off my ship."

Trapp's image crackled, zapped and then disappeared into the console with a breathy inhale from the TARDIS. Immediately the darkness inside of the Doctor vanished. He let out a hurried breath and ran a hunched gait around the console toward a computer terminal, the monitor of which burst into life and blinked urgently before the Doctor had skidded to a halt in front of it.

Clara watched with wide and worried eyes as the Doctor went from terrifying to manic in the span of a half-second. His eyes were as wide as those of one of her students as he switched his attention between keyboard and monitor.

"Doctor," she called worriedly. "Are you? Is everything alright?"

He held up a finger without looking at her, and then drew that digit back to pound heavily on the keys of the panel at his hands. His breath panted as he staggered his short bouts of typing to focus on a blinking cursor on the screen that would open up to a long string of text, and then would begin typing once more.

After a long few minutes of seemingly battling against the onboard computer, he swiped his hand across the console and let out a victorious yell.

"And Geronimo!" he called out sharply. He shot an excited look toward Clara and grinned. "Hang on tight, Clara. This might get bumpy."

Clara immediately thrust out her hands to hold onto the edge of the console. "What's goin on, Doctor?" she queried in a voice mixed with worry and excitement. "Where we going?"

"Well, my impossible girl, we are piggybacking on the temporal wavelength signal being emitted by a second TARDIS…" he chuckled to himself and rolled his eyes. "A TARDIS piloted by a young Time Lord who doesn't realize just how _brilliant_ I am …."

"Enough self-congratulations, please," Clara warned with a shake of her head.

"Right. Yes," he said with a sharp nod of his head. "It's been a while since I've had to use this delightful little feature on my TARDIS – what with no other TARDISes flying through the vortex in at least four hundred years – but I've activated my Tracking Monitor Control Board to lock onto the navigational units of Trapp's TARDIS. In a quaint little hokey-pokey marriage between the interstitial antennas of both ships, I've been able to track his ships path with my Time-Curve Indicator to be able to accurately determine his destination and time vector information for materialization."

Her brows lifted and she tightened her hold on the console's edge. "In English, please?"

The Doctor looked slightly put out. He used both hands to gesture toward the monitor. "But I'm being brilliant here, Clara. Can you just _pretend_ to understand what I'm saying for _once_ and let me have my moment?"

She shook her head. "I'm a teacher, Doctor. It's not in my nature to pretend to be impressed. My profession is all about grading and judgement."

He flopped his hand through the air in a dismissive wave. "Oh, then what good are you?"

She chuckled through a toothy grin. "In lay terms, please?"

He pouted a rather petulant purse of his lips. "I've got a metaphorical lasso around his ship and he's dragging us to parallel 110-25b-654-1-00, at galactic coordinate 58044 684884. Otherwise known as Pete's World, Earth." He waggled his brows at her and grinned with a light dance in his shoulders. "Now do you think I'm clever?"

"That remains to be seen." She yelped as the TARDIS pitched suddenly to the left, to the right, and then to the left again." Oh, this is bumpy isn't it?"

He petted the console affectionately. "She doesn't like crossing dimensions, do you darling?" He gripped onto the edge of the console to maintain his balance and looked to the monitor. "She's locked on the dsestination vectors and is separating from Trapp's ship. We should eke out of the turbulence shortly as she orientates herself properly inside the parallel vortex." He slid just his eyes to look toward Clara at his side. His voice softened as the shaking around them stopped. "Looks like she's found it," he ventured cautiously as his eyes lifted and looked around the expanse of the command room. "Go on, old girl. Get your bearings. Find her. Find Rose Tyler and take us to her."

The time rotor roared to life and the console room seemed to sway as the ship launched herself through the vortex funnel. The Doctor smiled. "You _are_ a sexy girl," he said quietly. "And so very clever."

Clara swallowed over a dry tongue and battled for a moment to hold herself upright. She looked between the Doctor and the rotor column, but chose not to comment. He looked like he was otherwise occupied with his own thoughts.

Finally the whining and wheezing of the ships massive engines dulled out and the entire TARDIS went silent except for the low hum of her standby systems holding her stable.

The Doctor let his eyes shift across the ceiling for a moment more, and then turned his entire body to look toward the door. "We're here," he managed with a slight shake in his voice. "Here. In a parallel world. Where I shouldn't be."

Clara shook her head and slapped him on the shoulder. "Don't be so daft," she chided. "She needs you. This is _exactly_ where you need to be." She looked to the door, took his hand, and tugged him toward it. "She might be fooling herself into thinking that she doesn't need you around…"

"Needing and wanting are two very different things," the Doctor corrected as he trailed almost reluctantly behind her. "She may well need me – but she might not _want_ me coming to her rescue. Rose Tyler is a very self sufficient, brave, amazing woman who…"

Clara paused at the door with her fingers curled around the lock for the door. "What, Doctor?"

"Who needs me a lot less than I need her."

Clara shook her head. "I don't think so, Doctor. All of us, every one of us who has ever met you needs you in their life." She twisted the knob and unlocked the door. "You're like an addictive drug."

"Thank you for _that_ comparison."

She bumped his shoulder with hers and pulled open the door. She coughed and waved her hand in front of her face to dispel the dust floating around in what looked like a basement. "Oh. My."

Her eyes fell on Trapp and – who she assumed was Rose – standing at the very edge of the room. Trapp was in the midst of heavy and desperate apology. His hands were gently curled around her arms and he tried to please for her attention with light movements of his head into her field of vision.

Rose 's attention, however, was locked on the man who strode out of the TARDIS behind Clara. Her breath drew in with gulps and fell from her lips as a harsh exhale. "Y-You," she managed breathlessly, and it was difficult to tell if she was happy or upset to see him.

The Doctor gave her a timid smile, one that quickly changed to a wide grin. He bent slightly at his knees and leaned back to brace himself as he opened his arms to invite her into a long-overdue hug. "Rose Tyler. It's so good to see you."

Rose roughly ripped Trapp's hands away from her arms with a fierce movement of her hands and shoved at him as she stalked by him toward the Doctor. Her eyes were dark and furious as she lifted her arm to point her finger toward the TARDIS.

"Get out of my house," she demanded angrily. "Get away from me and never come back."


	12. intimacy

A/N: It's been a while since I touched this fic, yeah? I needed to back off from it a moment and consider things a bit. But I'm back now... Hopefully with better ideas and a better plan of attack. It's still dark ... I warn you ... and some people might not like the depth of darkness ...

This chapter .. I make absolutely no apologies for. It might make some people squirm a little and I mildly apologise for that ... for everything else ... nope...

I certainly hope that you enjoy this chapter. I really do ...

~~oooOOOooo~~

His exhausted breaths drew in and out hard through dried and parted lips as he fell backward into a desk chair with enough force to roll it backward a good two feet. His hands came down hard on the armrests as his feet struggled to find purchase on the tiled floor. After finding himself secure in place and not about to continue rolling, he leaned forward in the chair and panted toward the ground eager to calm his breathing to something less than a heated pant.

"By Rassilon," he managed around a thick swallow around a dry tongue. " _That_ was something else."

Doctor Song let out a long sigh of disappointment as she turned around to face him. She adjusted her off-white pencil skirt and lowered the hem, but not before ensuring that the seat of her pants was hurriedly corrected after being so forcibly shoved off to one side only moments ago.

"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself," she intoned rather blandly as she folded her arms across her chest and leaned her rump back onto the desk edge. She looked up to the ceiling of the laboratory and breathed out a long whisper. "At least _someone_ did."

He held up a hand and gave it a light wave as he continued to try and wet his mouth to better wrap his tongue around the words he wanted to speak. " _Enjoyment_ and simply _sating a need_ for release are two very different things, River," he managed brokenly. He rolled his shoulders and slapped his tongue against the roof of his mouth in order to finally find the moisture he was seeking.

River watched him with a flat look, but an arched brow of analysis. "Are you saying that you don't _enjoy_ what we share, Vale?"

He snorted what may have been a chuckle and shrugged. "The thrill I get from this is because of the cocktails of endorphins, oxytocin, epinephrine, dopamine, phenylethylamine…"

"Yes, yes," she muttered with a wave of her hand and a shake in her head. "I _am_ a Doctor, Vale. I'm quite intimately aware of the various chemicals and hormones that are released during sex."

One side of his mouth lifted into a smirk. His eyes lifted to regard her, but his head didn't rise. "Then asking me if I _enjoy_ what we do together is rather moot, don't you think?"

She gripped at the very edge of the desk either side of her hips and leaned forward to bring her head in line with his. "But it might make a girl feel good to know that she has a bit of a _one-up_ on the basic standard physiological releases." She exhaled a breath and lifted herself back up to lean back on her arms. "That perhaps I might actually mean something more to you than a simple chemical release."

He eyed her suspiciously. His voice was cautious. "Do you want me to tell you that I love you?"

Her eyes widened slightly as she listened to him awkwardly sound out his question. She let out a hard breath, rolled her eyes, and then started to laugh with obvious incredulity. "Do I want you to…?" She waved her hand and shook her head. "Oh. God. No. I want _nothing_ of the sort."

His posture slumped with relief and he exhaled the long breath he'd been holding. "I'm probably more relieved to hear that than I should be," he stated airily. He lifted a hand quickly to stop her from interjecting a retort. "That isn't to say that I don't care in some way about you, River, because I do." His eyes pinched and he bared his teeth in a wince of discomfort. " _Love_ is just not…"

"Oh," she interrupted with urgency. "No. Vale. I don't want your _love_. Let's not confuse what we have here." She shifted a finger in between them both. "I've seen your love and the unreasonable jealous tendencies it brings out in you. Quite frankly, would rather not be a recipient of any of that thank you."

"No," he breathed out along an extended exhale. "You quite like your freedom to _explore_ , don't you?"

"That I do, Sweetie," she purred in response with a wink in her eye. "That I do."

He pursed his lips and nodded. "So I'm forbidden to love you, Doctor Song," he sang cheekily as he leaned back deeply in the chair and slid his hands into his trouser pockets. He propped his feet up on the edge of the desk to the right of her hip and crossed his feet at the ankles. "Yet, there is a definite spark in your eyes that suggests that your prohibition doesn't extend to how you're supposed to feel toward me."

She slowly shifted her eyes from the tips of his Converse, along his leg and then up his still-heaving torso toward his face. She narrowed her eyes at the arrogance she could see in his relaxed slouch. "I don't know what you're talking about."

He quickly dropped his feet from the desk, leaned forward, and exhaled a long grunt as he hauled himself to his feet in front of her. "The jealous streak you have toward my wife is almost as vile as my own." He tapped at the very tip of her nose with his fingertip. "Don't think I haven't noticed."

Doctor Song leaned forward to push herself off the desk and lifted her chin to bring her face in line with his. "I don't have any reason to be jealous of Rose Tyler," she breathed out coyly. "Jealousy would suggest that I view her as competition." She lifted her shoulder and inhaled an arrogant breath. "Which I don't."

"Don't you?"

She let one side of her face curl upward in a wince of disgust. "Hardly." She curled her finger around his tie and drew it out from his blazer, watching intently as it slid silkily along her finger. She then lifted her eyes to his. "If I truly wanted to have you all to myself, then I would. She wouldn't stand a chance."

He snatched her wrist tightly in his hand and clicked his tongue. "That's where you're wrong." He roughly dropped her wrist and turned sharply on his heel to talk over his shoulder at her. "Rose Tyler is the single most important woman in my entire multiverse. Noone compares to her and none should even try to be. She's my _wife_ and my entire existence all wrapped up in a magnificent little pink and yellow package."

She exhaled a snort through her nose. "Which might actually be believable if you weren't standing in my laboratory with your trousers still undone and your pants stained with ejaculate while your body still courses with the chemical cocktails of hard desk top sex."

He set his hands on his hips but didn't turn to face her directly as he spoke. "The chemicals of arousal caused by the hormone injections you gave me…"

"Which can be settled with you taking your wife when you get home," she completed harshly.

"Rose is a fifty-three minute drive from here," he countered. He looked over his shoulder at her. "And that's only when traffic is good."

"Then have a wank in the bathroom if you have so little control over it," she spat with obvious disgust. "You don't need to take a lover to take the edge off _that_." She looked him up and down with a look of repugnance. "You can make any excuse you want. I'm not buying it … and I'm pretty sure that she won't, either."

He blew out a breath that shuddered at the end. His inhale was slow.

"She knows, River." He turned to face her with an expression of remorse. "About _us_."

Doctor Song shook her head slowly. "She suspects something, but doesn't actually _know_ for sure."

He pressed his lips into a thin line and tightly shook his head.

Doctor Song's eyes widened. The initial surprise fell to an expression of curiosity. "What makes you so sure that she knows?"

"Last night," he breathed out hurriedly. He drew in a long inhale that looked as though it physically hurt to breathe. "We argued. She made the accusation and I didn't deny it."

Doctor Song watched him inhale a deep breath of guilt. Her eyes flared in shock. "Oh tell me you didn't…"

He grimaced and nodded. "It just came out. I was still reeling over seeing my _other_ self." He inhaled sharply; a gasp of anger. "Seeing how close I came to losing her to him…" He drew in a deep breath and exhaled a snarl through a curled lip. " _He_ doesn't have any right to her. He gave up his right to her back on Bad Wolf Bay when he abandoned the two of us and all but demanded that we live out our happy ever after on the other side of a dimensional wall."

Doctor Song tilted her head curiously. One brow was arched and she spoke through inquisitively pursed lips. "Perhaps your wife doesn't see it that way."

He flicked his eyes angrily toward her. "Rose doesn't have a choice in how she feels about him and our situation," he said with a snarl. "She hates him as much as I do." His voice quietened, but held onto the checked fury. "I've seen to that."

Doctor Song smiled at the insinuation in his tone. She strode a slinky stride toward him. "Well," she purred as she drew her finger across the lapel of his blazer. "I'm pretty sure you aren't suggesting unsolicited telepathic conditioning, because that is a violation of the highest order amongst your kind, isn't it?"

He snagged her wrist in his hand and grinned into her face. "My methods are my own."

"As are mine," she breathed with a lick at her lip as her eyes fell toward his. "Oh Vale," she purred along a wanton breath as she shifted her mouth higher with the intention to capture his lips with hers. "You are positively…"

"Don't," he hissed out sharply as his hand curled around her chin and his thumb dug into her jaw. " _That's_ an intimacy I _won't_ share with you."

She shoved at his arm to remove his hand from her jaw. She stepped backward and rubbed at the sting in her jaw from the press of his thumb. "A kiss is hardly a deeper intimacy than sex, Vale."

He snorted and shook his head. "Sex is biological. It's nothing but a primitive base function ingrained in your species, and all species who use sex as a means of propagation." He flicked his hand at her as he walked back toward the desk. "Oh, but you humans – especially women – talk of sex and love like they are one and the same thing." He spun and pointed a finger at her. "But it isn't. They aren't. Genital penetration is just _that_ : part a into slot b. You could have no feelings at all toward a member of your opposite sex yet still be able to rut each other into orgasm." He snorted out a laugh and looked to the ceiling. He pressed the tip of his tongue behind his teeth and smiled as he shook his head. He tilted his head back down to look at her. "It's such a primitive and primal function, in fact, that as you approach that final climactic end to the encounter – as the orgasm approaches – you lose all sense of propriety and control and give in completely to the act. Even if you wanted to stop, you can't." He smirked a one-sided grin. "Biology won't let you."

Doctor Song folded her arms across her chest and slouched to one side with obvious annoyance. "Is that so?"

Vale smirked and quickly moved across the white tiled floor to approach her. He winked at her sudden intake of breath and cupped her face in his hands. "Conversely," he began huskily. "Kissing is a voluntary action. It's a learned behavior, not a biological one." He dipped his face close to hers, but didn't move close enough to brush his lips across hers. He remained close and kept his voice low and husky. "Kissing is more intimate because it's completely voluntary. There is no biological imperative to do it. A kiss' only purpose is for intimate contact."

She inhaled an audible breath and lifted her chin higher to seek out his mouth. His name was on her lips as they puckered to reach for him.

Vale chuckled and pressed his finger to her lips. He opened his mouth to pepper out a series of negative sounding exhales through his open mouth and then stepped backward. "No, River."

"I hate you," she breathed darkly in response as she felt his retreat.

He grinned and waggled his brows. "No you don't."

She snorted and shook her head with a defiant lift in her chin. "I wouldn't be so sure about that if I were you."

He gestured toward the desk with a lift in his own chin. "And then, so _that_? What do you call our weekly desktop rendezvous then?"

"A _primitive_ and _primal biological base behavior_ ," she shot back with a smirk and an arrogant tilt in her shoulder. "Nothing more than that."

He had to laugh. "Quite right, too."

She opened her mouth to retort, but was cut off by the sounds of a petite redheaded woman in a labcoat and heels barreling in through the doors.

"Doctor Song!"

She snapped her attention from the grinning man ahead of her and tilted her body to the side to look around him. "Caitlin. How many times have I told you not to interrupt when Mr. Smith is in a consultation with me?"

Caitlin gasped shortly and held a tablet against her chest as she flicked her eyes toward Vale. There was apology behind her embarrassed flush, but she chose not to vocalise her apologies to him directly. Instead, she looked back toward Doctor Song. "Sorry, Doctor Song. I'll insist to you that I didn't choose to interrupt you lightly." She held out the tablet to River. "Our sensors detected a massive energy burst that I …" she swallowed and flicked her eyes toward Vale. "That I think you'd want to know about sooner rather than later."

Doctor Song tapped Caitlin on the shoulder to command her attention. "Look at _me_ when you're talking to me, Caitlin, not toward Mr. Smith."

Caitlin blinked rapidly and shuddered when she looked back toward her boss. "Again, I'm sorry, Doctor Song. But the energy burst. It might have something to do with…" She stuttered a few light breaths and then swallowed thickly. "Well. You know."

Vale moved quickly from where he stood and took position next to Doctor Song. He let his eyes shift quickly over the information on the tablet and rather rudely moved in his hand to zoom in and swipe through the information.

He didn't like what he saw.

"What?" His eyes narrowed. "No-o-o-o," he drawled with disbelief as he snatched the tablet from Doctor Song's hand. "That's impossible."

Doctor Song let out an impatient and irritated breath and attempted to snatch back the tablet. "Do you mind?" she growled in annoyance.

"Actually, I do," he answered with distraction as he continued to swipe and zoom in on the data on the screen. After a moment he looked toward Caitlin and turned the screen toward her. "How accurate is this data?"

Her mouth flapped a moment and she held up both hands in a clumsy point toward the tablet. "As accurate as it can be, I suppose."

"Rubbish response," he countered back with a hiss. He pointed at the data. "This says that the energy within the burst was Artron."

Caitlin nodded. "Yes. That's right."

Vale lifted his brows. "And just _how_ do you know about Artron energy?" he queried in a slow and condescending tone. "How, when Artron isn't known to exist in this universe?"

Caitlin looked with wide eyes toward Doctor Song, who merely rolled her eyes and let out a huff. She held her hand out in a request for the tablet. "Give me the iPad, Vale."

He defiantly held it off to the side and narrowed his eyes at her. "Are you from across the parallel walls, River?" he questioned with cold suspicion.

Her eyes hardened with his obvious accusation. "I most definitely am _not_ from any universe other than this one," she shot back with a hiss in her voice. "Now give me my tablet, Vale."

He lifted himself back to a stand and allowed himself a moment to loom over her. He lowered his head to whisper hotly against her ear. "I've never told you about Artron energy. How could you possibly know the particle composition of something that doesn't exist in this universe?"

"Obviously, it exists," Doctor Song snapped shortly as she snatched the tablet from his hand and tucked it under her arm. She shifted her arm back when he tried to reach for the tablet once again. Her eyes flared in warning. "No. You _don't_ get to continue to ferret your way through my data and make your suspicious accusations. This…" She indicated the tablet still tucked under her arm. "…is none of your concern."

"Artron energy is every bit my concern," he countered aggressively as he tried again to retrieve the tablet. "It's radiation from the vortex of time. A remnant from the gates of the schism at Kasterborous." He blew out a breath through pursed lips and flicked his head to one side. "Kasterborous doesn't even exist in this parallel. So it absolutely _shouldn't_ be leaking through into this universe."

He began to pace a little. "Because if it's leaking into this universe." His eyes flared. "Well. That means that…"

Doctor Song's brows lifted curiously. A smile danced upon her lips. "Am I hearing you correctly? Did you say that Artron is energy from the Time Vortex?"

"Yes. It is." He grimaced and shook his head as his pacing intensified. "How can there possibly be a radiation level high enough level for you to be able to pick it up on your sensors? For that ... well … That would have to imply that there's been a projectile of sorts that's passed through the vortex and into this temporal location."" He twisted his head toward Doctor Song and held out his hand in a request for the tablet. "I need to see that data. I need to know where the blast was centered," he growled urgently.

"So you can try and harness that energy for yourself?" she queried within a song. "Oh, Vale. I really don't think that's a good idea."

He flicked his hand more urgently. "Don't be stupid. You can't actually harness Artron. Well. Not by any means available to your species at this stage of your development. You'd all blow yourselves up if you tried anything like that with the meagre technologies that you have on hand."

She blew out a hard breath of annoyance through her nose and handed back the tablet. "But I suppose you're perfectly capable of it," she droned sardonically.

He rubbed at his chin and shook his head as he analyzed the data on the screen. "No, and I wouldn't dare try it. In order to safely harness pure Artron I'd need access to the Eye of Harmony, several very complicated regulators and waste radiation disposal vessels as well as an appropriate transdimensional containment unit." He lifted his eyes to hers. "Do you happen to have anything of that nature anywhere in your laboratory?"

"You mean like a TARDIS?" Doctor Song queried quietly.

He stilled at the suggestion. His eyes locked onto her mouth as though willing her to make that suggestion once again.

She let one side of her crimson lips twist up into a smirk. "Do you think there may be one nearby?"

He broke from his frozen stance. He frowned and shook his head. "Don't be daft. There's only one TARDIS lef tin the entire multiverse and I doubt very much that the owner of that magnificent machine has found his way through the walls of _this_ dimension."

"If this Artron is _leaking_ …" she curled her fingers into a gesture of quotation. "As you put it … into this universe, then wouldn't that be an option?"

"Passing through the walls is impossible." He blew out a breath and widened his eyes as his voice took on a breathy tone. "Well, okay, we've cracked the walls enough to get one or two bodies through the fractures with a hopper or two, but a TARDIS? No. She's too big, and anyway, the old girl wouldn't let him even try." He scratched at his sideburn. "So he couldn't pass through. He wouldn't. It's impossible." His eyes widened as his voice slowed and quieted. "Oh. Oh. No. Yes. No. Yes, he would. He _could_ if he could lock onto the residual vortex wavelength of another traveler heading across the walls."

Doctor Song looked at him with a frown tightening across her brow. "Vale?"

"Oh," he growled. He was obviously still only entertaining the thoughts his own mind and ignoring everyone else. "Oh you did it, didn't you? You locked onto our signal to break through the walls." His lip curled into a snarl. "And now you think you can come back and take her from me." He dropped his chin and glared toward the doorway as though it was his most mortal enemy. "No. I won't let that happen."

Doctor Song let out an impatient breath. "Vale. What are you on about?"

Vale launched suddenly from where he stood and disappeared through the doorway to the laboratory with a thunder in his footfall and a whip in the back of his blazer. "I don't care how many regenerations he's got left, I'll kill him until he's dead."

Doctor Song blinked and let out an airless cough as Vale ran out of her clinic toward destination unknown.

"Caitlin?" she called softly. "The Artron burst. Where did it happen?"

"The Smith house," Caitlin answered softly. She swallowed thickly. "Do you want me to send a team after him?"

"Yes," she answered softly, her eyes on the empty doorway. "But remain out of sight. Only surveillance of their property for the moment." She exhaled a breath. "If we're very lucky, then his counterpart has already left with that little blonde twit and we'll have a man on our hands bent on vengeance and willing to do whatever he can to breach the walls of the dimensions to get her back."

"And then destroy the man who took her," Caitlin offered softly.

"And then we can destroy _him_ ," Doctor Song sang out cruelly. "And take control of the most powerful weapon in the Multiverse."

"Weapon? I thought the TARDIS was a ship?"

She looked to Catilin with a wink and a smile. "Time machine, Sweetie." She looked back to the doorway. "If one can control time, then they have the greatest weapon of them all." She flicked her fingers toward the door. "Well? What are you waiting for? Go do my work…"

Caitlin winced as she shook her head. "There is something else, Ma'am."

Doctor Song hummed with question.

Caitlin held out her hand for the tablet, and then let her fingers dance across the glass screen in a practiced routine of taps and swipes. After a moment she turned the tablet and handed it back to her boss. "The subject in Sub-Level 10. Our primary source for the Lindos you're injecting Mr. Smith with." She jutted her chin at the image on the screen of a body covered in a white sheet. "He seems to be waking from the coma."

Doctor Song's brows knitted together and her lip curled with impatience. "Well then increase the dosage of his sedative. Keep him under."

"If we give him more," she advised cautiously. "Then we trigger a massive Lindos dump into his system." She swallowed thickly and shrank lightly under River's wide-eyed and shocked expression. "He started to glow, Doctor." She lifted her hands and looked at them with horror. "It was rippling underneath his skin. Two of our collection machines exploded with the sudden massive increase in production. We finally managed to hold it at bay and rid his system of it, but we're going to be unable to continue keeping him completely comatose."

Doctor Song winced, but nodded. "But we can keep him under?"

Caitlin nodded. "I think so. The paralytic is still holding, so even if he does break through and regain consciousness, he'll be unable to do much more than move his eyeballs."

"Good to know."

Caitlin thumbed to the doorway. "Anyway. I'll head off then?"

"Yes, Caitlin," Doctor Song replied quietly as she let her eyes trace over the greyscale image of the man lying on a gurney thirteen storeys below them. "And thank you for keeping me posted." Her eyes flicked up from the tablet. "And continue to update me, please. If we find that we have to neutralize this man, then I want to be the one to do it. Understood?"

Caitlin nodded quickly. "Understood, Doctor."

"I need to make sure of that," she pressed. "Killing a time Lord isn't as easy as you think. It has to be done in a very specific manner in order for it to hold."

"Like a werewolf," Caitlin muttered under her breath.

Doctor Song snorted, but chuckled. "Something like that, although it takes more than a silver bullet."

Caitlin nodded. "I'll make sure that all staff are made aware of your mandate. Immediately ma'am." She then turned and strode briskly toward the doorway, leaving River Song alone in her office with the tablet in her hand.

She sat back on the edge of her desk and used the swipe of her fingers to zoom in tight on the image of her prisoner. "Look at you," she commented with a tilted head as she turned her fingers on the display to turn the picture into a portrait image of the sleeping man.

With the High Definition feed from the laboratory, she could see the increased rise and fall in his chest that indicated an elevated respiration rate consistent with a man breaking free of a coma. She pursed her lips and let her eyes wander up to the young man's closed eyes. His face was obscured by thick and course hair across his jaw and underneath his chin, and curtained by long, billowy chestnut hair that stretched as long as his waist, but she could still see his face as clear as the day he was brought in. Behind all that facial scruff and chestnut hair were sharp, handsome, roguish features that could very likely stop a girl's heart and make her fall desperately in love with him. In any other life he would've made a perfect male model or a playboy… In any other lifetime…

She pursed her lips with analysis as she watched his chest heave and his mouth open to exhale a glittering breath up toward the camera.

"I wonder why, now, you've started to wake up," she muttered to herself as she used the swipe of two fingers to zoom yet closer to the man's face. "In over five years you've never shown any life in you at all. Nothing. Absolutely nothing at all. Why now?"

The glittering on her screen finally dissipated enough that Doctor Song could see the movement of his eyes underneath their lids. It was a frantic left to right zig-zag movement typical of REM sleep, and gave her no real indication of an imminent rousing. At least not until the movement suddenly ceased and his chin lowered slowly to that his brows were more in line with the camera's eye than his eyes were.

In a breath that immediately held inside her chest, Doctor Song watched with panic as his eyelids snapped open to reveal a bright glowing pair of amber eyes half shielded by his brows staring directly into the camera lens.

A single whisper of a word shot across Doctor Song's mind. "Father…"


	13. Get Out

A/N: It's been a very very long while since I've updated any of my fics ... I've been hit very hard with RL over the past few months, and then it's been a struggle to get back into writing. It probably didn't help that I chose this one to get back to ... sighhhhh...

Anyhooo. I know this isn't a popular fic, but I hope those of you who are reading it will like this chapter. Basically just arguing ... but ... ya know.

~~oooOOOooo~~

It was only a short few moments between the sounds of dematerialisation echoing throughout the small basement space and the sounds of a TARDIS returning. Rose knew well enough to detect the change in pitch that signalled materialisation. The whine and wheeze of a departing TARDIS was always coupled with a shrill cry across time and space – this was a sound that was absent from a time ship on approach.

She smiled as the winds of materialisation kicked up the flyaway strands of her hair that had fallen helplessly from her make-shift and messy bun. Her smile held as she wiped at her face to clear it of the itch of irritation that her blowing hair caused. Swiping at it became a futile exercise, however. The winds were relentless.

With the appearance of the deep grey-coloured cylinder, she opened her smile in preparation to remark a cheeky question of him missing her after such a very short time. But with the rapid speed in which the capsule's door opened and Trapp burst out of the ship, her smile quickly fell. Trapp's movements were frantic and his panicked expression was in her face and field of vision so quickly that she was unable to appreciate or even notice the pinlight laser beam of the Chameleon circuit scanning the room to change the appearance of the hull into the shape of a cabinet.

"Rose," he panted urgently. "Rose, I'm so sorry."

Her eyes widened and her head shook lightly with confusion. "Sorry for what?"

Trapp lifted his hands to take hold of her arms, but seemed undecided as to whether or not he had permission to do so. His fingers flailed hopelessly and his hands hovered without purpose. His head moved with the slide of his eyes between his hands and Rose's arms. He didn't look up at her to meet her eyes.

"I didn't think," he said worriedly. "I know I should have guessed that he was this cunning. Rumours say that he is." His voice fell to fear. "Oh, the rumours say he is. Cunning and then cunning some more. So I should have known, but you said that you and he weren't close, so why would I think that? 'Course, Spandrell told me otherwise. He did, and I should have expected it, but I didn't. I never thought for a second that he'd actually latch on to Teden's signal to follow. I really didn't."

Rose dipped her head to try to capture his gaze. His rapid-fire words were basically nonsensical in her ears, and she struggled to be able to quickly grasp anything of what he was saying. Although unable to decipher, she knew it wasn't good. "Trapp?" she queried with more compassion and confusion than worry. "Trapp, what's wrong?"

He lifted his eyes to hers and let his hands drop to his side. He swallowed thickly and gave her an expression that begged her forgiveness. "I messed up," he admitted.

Her brows fell into a frown of concern. "Messed up in what way?"

Trapp's eyes flicked toward the capsule, but he held that image for less than a second before he looked back toward her. "I contacted Gallifrey," he said with a rush. "Like I told you I would. I spoke…" He paused to swallow. "I spoke with a friend at Traffic control…"

A brow slowly lifted on Rose's forehead. She couldn't help but picture a Gallifreyan police officer standing at an intersection directing traffic. "Traffic control?"

He waved his hand dismissively. "Yes. Traffic control. She – my friend Celeste - monitors all of the incoming and outgoing flight plans of all Time Capsules. I was on my way back to Gallifrey, and I couldn't get it out of my head." He paused to inhale and finally found the ability to clutch lightly at her upper arms.

"Rose," he breathed out apologetically as his eyes bored imploringly into hers. "Rose, the thought of a violation of that nature… "

Rose breathed out the word and blinked her eyes with worry. Her worry heightened as she felt the rise of wind in the room and a second sound of materialisation slowly increase from the corner beside her own baby TARDIS. She knew that words were still tumbling from his lips, but she didn't register anything beyond the sight of a blue Police Box fading in and out of view behind the panicked Time Lord.

"Rose, I'm sorry. Please believe me."

The TARDIS – His TARDIS – the Doctor's TARDIS – finally materialised completely. Her eyes were locked on time ship and her voice slowly passed quietly through her parted lips. "Trapp. What did you do?"

"Please believe me when I say that I didn't expect this," he implored desperately as he shifted his head left, right, up and down to try to capture her attention from the TARDIS and the creaking of its doors. "When you told me that you and he were only acquaintances…"

Her attention, however, was completely locked on the man who exited the ship she had once called home. She exhaled a three-letter word through a breath that conveyed her shock at his arrival, her acknowledgement that she knew who he was, and of her horror that he was there. Her breath drew in and out of her in great gulps that threatened to break her into heaving sobs, but she quickly neutralised that threat by focusing on every other emotion his image pulled from within her.

She chose anger and betrayal as the leading emotions and let her body ripple with that. It was easy to do when she saw the Doctor's rather timid smile, and then his need to quickly shield his apprehension behind forced confidence and a brighter grin.

"Rose Tyler," he called out as he opened his arms and braced himself for what she believed he assumed would be a bone-crushing embrace. "It's so good to see you."

 _So good to see…?_

Her eyes flicked briefly toward his new and attractive female companion and then shot back toward him. His smile and his confidence that she would so readily run back into his arms after he'd abandoned her on a beach so many years ago without even a backward glance … Oh … oh, that was the straw she needed to release her anger upon him.

She wasn't gentle, nor apologetic, as she fiercely pulled herself out of Trapp's hold and then shoved him out of her way to approach the flop-haired, short-trousered, tweed-wearing Time Lord behind him. She let anger cloud her eyes and her stalk as she lifted her hand and point a furious finger toward the TARDIS.

"Get out of my house," she growled angrily. "Get away from me and never come back."

The Doctor didn't change his stance, the openness of his arms, or even the joviality in his voice and smile. "Don't talk such rubbish, Rose," he forced out through his grin as she moved to within capturing distance. He quickly scooped her into his arms and pulled her against his chest. He held her tight even though she struggled violently against him. "I can feel as much relief from you as I can anger…"

Rose didn't feel the sudden hitch in his breath that was his gasp of horrific realisation. She thrust the butts of both of her hands into his shoulders to shove herself away from him. "How _dare_ you!"

The Doctor stumbled backward from her at that moment. His eyes were wide with terror and his face white as a sheet as he fell back onto the door of the TARDIS without any of the grace of his previous incarnation. "R-Rose? How are you doing that?"

She let his defeated slouch against the TARDIS give her courage, and even though she could tell that her victory was only as a result of his sudden confusion – about just what, she didn't know nor care about at this juncture – she held herself high over him.

"You aren't welcome here, Doctor," she seethed through her teeth. "You're not even supposed to _want_ to be here. You made your choice, remember…."

His green eyes were sad and he kept them on her as he lightly shook his head. "Not before you'd made yours," he countered with quiet hurt in his voice. The proud Time Lord remained slouched against the side of his TARDIS and looked toward her with pain inside his ancient eyes. "What choice did I have but to respect the choice you'd made?"

The fight within Rose waned, and she slouched with defeat of her own. Her voice was barely audible. "I didn't choose _this_ , Doctor." Her breath drew in raggedly and she watched warily as he slowly pulled himself from his own slouch to approach her with care. "I wouldn't ever choose _this_."

He paused only a few feet from where she stood and held out his hand to her. His voice was soft and urging. "Then change your mind and come with me. Let me take you away from all of this."

"I can't," she whimpered quietly.

"All of time and space at your disposal," he continued with a voice rising with confidence. "Your hand in mine, the Doctor and Rose Tyler, in the TARDIS, just as should be."

Her eyes hardened with those words; an echo of words spoken to her on a beach back in Norway when a man in a pin-striped suit tossed a chunk of TARDIS coral toward a man dressed in blue. Her back straightened. She shook her head. Her voice darkened. "Get out."

He felt the wash of betrayal flow through him with her words; a wave of hurt, loss and sadness so intense that he felt his left heart skip and his breath fly out of him as through punched in the chest. He didn't stagger backward this time, but his entire face fell into confusion.

"How can you do that?" he asked along a hoarse whisper.

Rose's head tipped to one side. "Do _what_?" she shot back hotly. "Ask you to leave?" Her expression shifted to one of petulance. "With relative ease when I consider how you've always found it so easy to dump me off and walk away."

His green eyes immediately flared and he approached her with all the power of his oncoming storm persona driving him forward. "Do you think it was _easy_?" he growled out. " _Easy_ to walk away from _you_?" He saw her lips move to retort, but stopped her with a shake of his head. His tone of voice didn't lighten any when he continued. "I needed you, Rose Tyler. I told you that. Back on that beach. There was nothing _easy_ about watching you choose another man over me."

"You only told me that as part of your sales pitch for me to accept you dumping him off with me," she seethed in reply.

"And it seemed to do the trick," he accused sharply. "Didn't it? You made your choice easily enough."

"You were the one who made that choice, Doctor," she corrected him as she clenched her fists at her sides and she leaned forward to let her entire stature stiffen much like a little girl in tantrum. "I did _not_ choose _anyone_ ," she vowed firmly. "You never _gave_ me the chance to _choose_ for myself. You just dumped me on a beach with your metacrisis clone, turned on your heel and swaggered back into your TARDIS without a damn care in the world."

"Without a _what_?" he yelled indignantly in reply. His arm thrust out to point at the ground behind him. "You were kissing him! Mouth to mouth and all …squishy! What do you expect me to do in that moment? Wait around for you to finish and then ask for my turn? Tap you on the shoulder and say _excuse me a moment, hate to interrupt your mating dance here with a man who is very much the inferior human version of me. But I'm about a tafelshrew's hair from making a complete fool of myself by either wailing like a broken hearted whippet or acting like a Neanderthal; knocking him out and then throwing you over my shoulder to take you back to the TARDIS?_ " He chuckled dangerously. "Don't you think for a second I wasn't ready to do just that."

"Oh, bullshit. You were happy to be rid of me." Her seething then fell to disgust when she heard a gasp of shock from Clara. Her arm lifted so that she could point toward her. "Got rid of me so you could go back out and swan around the universe picking up woman after woman – no doubt making them fall in love with you so you can dump them off when you get bored and find yourself someone new."

"How dare you…."

Her eyes flicked toward Clara. "Tell me something – oh, I'm sorry – what was your name? The Doctor here is too much of an ignorant, selfish prat to formally introduce us."

Clara's eyes were wide and her mouth flapped hopelessly. She didn't get a chance to answer her question, however, as the Doctor launched into his own tirade.

"Selfish, Rose? You have the gall to call _me_ selfish?" He took a long stride toward her to stand chest against chest and found himself having to crank his neck almost painfully to be able to glare down at her. "I gave up my _life_ for you."

"One of _thirteen_ ," she corrected coldly with a dig of her fingertip into his chest. She levered her head upward to glare as best she could into his face. "And not until I chose to give up my _one_ life for you first." She snorted. "Not to be outdone, the Time Lord Doctor, right?"

Hurt flashed across his eyes as they flicked their focus between hers. His voice softened dramatically. "I saved you," he croaked, "from having to do that for me." His voice fell to a whisper and his expression softened into reverence. "You just couldn't let me die, could you? I lost everything, Rose. I was ready to die. But you wouldn't let me. Why wouldn't you let me die?"

"How could I?" she asked him with equal softness. "I loved you with ev'rythin' inside me, Doctor. Forget the stars an' all the planets – _you_ were my whole universe - I couldn't let you die."

"When I left you on that beach," he vowed sadly. His arms moved to tenderly circle her waist. "I may as well have." He watched her turn her head off to one side and sniff, a tear rolling down her cheek. "Did he tell you – my clone – how I almost ended myself on Christmas Day underneath the Thames because of how devastated I was to lose you?"

"He didn't have to," she whispered as she pulled away from him and swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. "I saw it for myself… What happened when Donna wasn't there to stop you."

He nodded slowly. "I died in the alternate world. Didn't I, Rose?"

She closed her eyes and swallowed thickly. It took a moment for her to try and compose herself with the reappearance of a long-suppressed image of a lifeless pin-striped arm falling out from underneath a white coroner's sheet.

"Please go," she whispered finally without opening her eyes. "Let me live with the choice _you_ made for and let me be."

His arms tightened around her, but it wasn't in a gesture of tenderness. He held her tightly with argument in an attempt to prevent her escaping him. "I didn't tell you to kiss him, all mouth to mouth and … and squishy like you did."

She rolled her shoulders in a pathetic attempt to pull out of his arms that did nothing more than slightly loosen his hold. "You could have stepped in, you know. You could've been the one that said you loved me.."

"Rose…"

"No, you _should_ have been the one who said it," she corrected with renewed resolve. Now, she was able to pull back from him, and made sure to take a full stride backward to take herself out of his reach. "But you had to skip and hop and spit out a hollow little copout of it not needing to be said."

His eyes twitched and his head lowered so that he looked toward her through his near-invisible brows. His voice was quiet, and even husky as he tried to shove down the emotion that was tingling the very back of his throat in a very unpleasant way. "It shouldn't have needed to be said, Rose. I thought it was obvious."

She snorted a derisive sound of utter annoyance. "The King of mixed signals, you are," she accused darkly. "How does anyone know anything for sure about you and how you feel unless you're telling them. Shit, Doctor, even when you open your mouth and pretend to clarify it, you still can't tell for sure."

"You believed _him_ well enough, didn't you?"

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Yeah. And look where that's gotten me – my son's dead, I'm being experimented on with the full knowledge of my _philanderous_ husband, who's cheating on me with the woman who is …"

"He's _what_?"

Rose snorted a laugh through her nose. She figured he'd caught only the _cheating_ part of her rant and rolled with that. "Yeah. With a Doctor called River Song." Her eyes flicked up to his at the sound of his breath hitching in his throat. "Heard of her? Course you have. Married her last I heard."

"You might want to better vet your sources," he growled. "There was nothing legitimate about…"

"Shag her in Prime, shag her here in Pete's World," she continued with a sigh and a roll in her eyes. "Dunno what's so special about her. All hair and attitude that one…"

"You seem to be doing a fine job of it yourself," the Doctor argued, although in a tone of voice more defeated than aggressive.

Rose's eyes lifted to his. She then pointed toward the TARDIS, and to the vanishing backs of Trapp and Clara through her doors. "Just leave."

He folded his arms across his chest and shook his head. "No. I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to stay right here until that cloned version of my _other_ self gets back home so that he and I can have a little chat."

Rose let a fake smile twist up the edges of her mouth. "Oh. How quaint. Would you like me to prepare you tea and scones…?"

"I'm going to fix this," he vowed thickly. "And then you're coming back with me. I'm taking you as far from this place as my TARDIS is capable of taking us."

Rose's eyes flicked toward the machine in question. "Bit like Trapp _fixing_ your TARDIS? This isn't a broken bit of machinery, Doctor, this is something much more intricate than that."

"I don't know what the Arcalian has to do with it," he grunted petulantly, "but…"

"The fact that your current companion just took in a Pundehahiran technician who's simply dying to tinker with your girl into …"

"She did _what?"_ He barked incredulously with a twist of his head and body toward his time ship. His eyes narrowed and his fists clenched. He began a slow stalk toward his TARDIS. "I'll regenerate that little woprat if he's doing any fiddling about with my TARDIS."

"Yeah," Rose breathed out as she watched the Doctor stalk into his TARDIS without so much as another word. "You do that." He looked up toward the POLICE sign at the top of the TARDIS. "Take him away, old girl. Please. I can't do this right now. If John finds out he's here…" She inhaled deeply. "Then we're all in danger."

She gasped with the slamming of the TARDIS door, and then a panicked pounding from within that drowned out the sound of the Doctor demanding to be let out. The winds of dematerialisation swept first across the dusty floor and then circled around her legs. A tear fell from Rose's eye as the whine and wheeze of the machine peaked and then ebbed away toward nothing.

"Thanks, girl," she whispered to the now empty place in the corner. She then looked toward the two timeship cabinets and shook her head.

"Well. I guess I have two of you now." She smirked and pointed toward them both as she heard a car pull up outside through the windows of the basement. "Now shush and behave, okay?"

Her head shot up at the sound of her husband's voice hollering out her name from the front door as he battled to unlock all of the locks that he'd installed. She swallowed thickly, but raced to the stairs to beat him into the foyer and hopefully continue to hide her only sanctuary in the entire house. She paused at the top and looked down at them both over her shoulder.

"And if you're at all capable … Please stop them coming back."


End file.
